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INSTITUTE ESSAYS 



READ BEFORE THE 

/ 

"MINISTERS' INSTITUTE,' 



Probftmce, JfiLE, ©ttober, 1879. 



WITH AN 



INTRODUCTION 

BY 

REV. HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D. 



BOSTON : 



GEO. H. ELLIS, 101 MILK STREET. 
1880. 



Copyright, 1880, 
by 

Geo. H. Ellis. 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 



The publisher regrets the long but unavoidable delay in giving this 
volume to the public. But the intrinsic value of the Institute Essays, 
independent of the special occasion where they were first presented, 
as it is the only excuse for putting them in any permanent form, must 
warrant their republication, even at this late date. 

While all the essays, with one exception, have been revised by the 
authors, special attention may, without invidious distinction, be called to 
Professor Ezra Abbot's remarkable discussion of the External Evidences 
of the Authorship of the Fourth Gospel. The paper originally read 
before the Institute has since been expanded and elaborated, until it 
now stands as a complete treatise on a subject of the profoundest 
interest to all Bible students. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Introduction, ......... ; 5 

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by Rev. S. R. Calthrop, .v . . . 9 
The Relation of Modern Philosophy to Liberalism, by Prof. 

Charles C. Everett, .1 26 

The Influence of Philosophy upon Christianity, by Francis E. 

Abbot, 49 

Monotheism and the Jews, by Dr. Gustav Gottheil, ..... 73 

The Idea of God, by Rev. John W. Chadwick, 104 

The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, by Prof. Ezra Abbot, U 125 

The Gospel of John, by Rev. Francis Tiffany, V 22% $J 

Methods of Dealing with Social Questions, by Rev. J. B. Har- 
rison, 249 

Ethical Law and Social Order, by Rev. George Batchelor, . . 255 



INTRODUCTION. 



"The Ministers' Institute" is an association of Unita- 
rian and other ministers willing to work with them for the 
promotion of critical and independent studies in theology 
and religion. It was founded in 1876, and has had only two 
sessions. Its method is to assign, through a committee, to 
the best scholars, whether within or without its ranks, whose 
services it can obtain, such subjects as most require critical 
and learned treatment, and to give the writers at least a 
year's time to prepare their papers. A session of four days 
is held every other year, at some central and accessible 
place, at which these papers are read and discussed. Hith- 
erto about one hundred and fifty ministers have been in 
attendance as members, and many others of various eccle- 
siastical connections as hearers. There are usually eight 
papers read ; and an effort is made to have each important 
subject treated by two scholars known to incline to opposite 
sides of the question. Each day is thus given up to some 
one theme, on all sides of which light is thrown, — first by 
experts, and then by open discussion. 

The present volume speaks for itself. It is a collection of 
the papers read at Providence, R.I., in October last, at the 
second session of the Institute. These papers were quite 
fully reported in the Christian Register of November first ; 
but they are now printed from the original manuscripts, with 
the exception of one paper, — Rev. J. B. Harrison's, — which 



6 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



could not be procured. They are published at the earnest 
request of many of those who not only heard them, but 
have read them in newspaper form, and wish to have them 
in a shape more convenient for reconsideration and pres- 
ervation. 

The business agent of the Christian Register has gener- 
ously assumed the risk of the volume ; and the least I can 
do, to show my sense of the value and credit of his enter- 
prise, is to comply with his request to furnish a brief intro- 
duction. 

The object of the Ministers' Institute, as may be inferred 
from the account already given, is not to proclaim fixed 
results, but to exhibit the best methods of study in theology 
and religion ; to stimulate inquiry into matters still unsettled 
or unknown to the bottom, and to encourage and aim at a 
scientific mode in treating them. It is already plain that the 
Institute has not mistaken its way, and that its original aim 
and object is one deemed practicable and useful. When the 
Institute was first projected, it was supposed that the study 
of theological problems and the critical pursuit of truth in 
matters of religion was a work so nearly akin to that of 
theological schools, that only ministers anxious to continue 
the studies commenced there would be interested in its 
meetings. It was even seriously proposed to exclude the 
laity, lest any temptation to adapt the papers to their sup- 
posed tastes might lessen their frankness and rob them 
of the scientific severity which was so much desired by 
professional students. The experience of two sessions has 
proved that this notion did injustice to the laity; that they 
are quite as eager for thorough, scholarly, logical, and scien- 
tific treatment of theological questions as the ministers 
themselves, and no more alarmed at the light which learned 
criticism is throwing upon the history of the religious senti- 
ment, the relations of the great religions to each other, the 
origin of our own sacred writings, nor at the changes which 
modern science, and especially anthropology, is making nec- 
essary in our views of inspiration and revelation, than those 
who have been professionally trained to the investigation of 
these theories. 



INTRODUCTION. 



7 



Thoughtful people are discovering that the scientific 
method properly understood is just as applicable to one 
form of truth as to another; that religion can no more 
escape it, nor profit by neglecting it, than political economy 
or agriculture ; in short, that it is simply treason to truth to 
doubt or deny that the same logic, the same caution, the 
same thoroughness, the same reliance on critical rules, 
should be applied to the investigation of religious truth as to 
all other. When it is understood that the scientific method 
is only another name for the employment of all the best 
means for discovering or testing truth, and involves in the 
treatment of every department of knowledge the use of the 
means that are appropriate to that department, the remain- 
ing prejudice against its employment will disappear. Some 
have carelessly imagined that the affections of the heart, 
the light of the conscience, the native sensibilities, were 
to be ignored by science ; but when we are studying what 
concerns the heart, science will compel us to take the heart 
itself into counsel as the chief witness. To study theology 
without faith is a vain effort. To pursue religion in an 
irreligious spirit is futile. No doubt the study of meta- 
physics by physical methods and of theology by unspiritual 
methods will prove barren, and will be soon discovered to be 
as unscientific as it is destructive. 

These papers are presented as studies only. The Minis- 
ters' Institute has no creed. It does not even except the 
Christian religion, its authority or its origin, from the 
themes which may be re-investigated, and on which new 
light may be thrown. In theory it is not even an associa- 
tion of Unitarian ministers or Christian ministers. It cor- 
dially welcomes the testimony of religious minds of all 
faiths, when it knows them to be learned, earnest, and pro- 
found. It will hear the Jew and the Gentile, the Roman 
Catholic and the Protestant, the Hindoo and the Persian, if 
men of virtuous and pious lives, of accredited learning and 
high gifts of expression, will come and teach them what they 
think they know. But hitherto the chief difficulty has 
been in getting Christian theologians of any school but the 



8 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Unitarian to come and share their studies and communicate 
their best thoughts and most exact opinions. It is hoped 
that this obstacle will sooner or later give way. Meanwhile, 
the Ministers' Institute will improve such opportunities as it 
finds open for broadening the platform of religious truth 
and sweetening the charity of common seekers after God. 

h. w. B. 



FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST. 



By Rev. S. R. CALTHROP. 

" Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and 1 
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."— Matthew xxviii., 19. 

This is the ancient formula into which the generations of 
Christendom have been baptized, tft was the truth under- 
lying this formula which gave a new life to the world. To 
set forth that truth in nineteenth-century language, and to 
apply that truth to our own times and needs, will be our 
task to-night. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost : let us take 
these three names in order, each by itself. Then best can 
we answer the question, Are these three names one Name ? 

1. The name of the Father. " Our Father who art in 
heaven." The Lord's Prayer is the true orthodox creed, or 
verbal statement of right thinking in religion. It is the 
creed of Jesus himself, the one form of words in which he 
embodied his statement of the faith. Take away from the 
gospel the Lord's Prayer, and the divine ideas it contains, 
and you have no gospel left, — no good tidings at all to tell 
to any man. But keep the Lord's Prayer, and, if you had 
nothing else, the glad tidings of salvation could still be 
joyously sounded into the ears and hearts of men. 

If a man believes from his soul that he has a Father in 
heaven, — that is, if he knows that the infinite God is not 
only the all-wise and all-powerful Maker of the universe, but 
that he is also the just and tender Lover of all souls, that all 
mankind were begotten by that love, and rest forever in the 
bosom of that Love; if he hallows that Father's name, — 
that is, if from his soul he reverences truth, justice, purity, 
2 



TO 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



love; if he gives loyal, unquestioning allegiance to these, 
can be depended upon always, in all places, to witness for 
these, since these are the name of God ; if he prays and 
works for the coming of that Father's kingdom, — that is, 
for the time when that Father's will shall be done on earth 
as it is done in heaven, — when down here, down on the dull, 
sordid, commonplace earth (which is the name fools give to 
this particular one of God's heavens), the two command- 
ments, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart 
and soul and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself," shall be 
obeyed as naturally, as perfectly, as joyously as they are 
obeyed by God's angels in his upper heaven, — if a man be- 
lieves and lives all this, and persuades other men to believe 
and live all this, that man is a saved man. For the man who 
trusts God for all this can surely trust God to give him his 
daily bread. The greater includes the less. " Your heavenly 
Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." The 
man who has in his breast the heart of love that prompts 
him to forgive cannot help knowing that he, too, is forgiven. 
In the midst of the temptations of the world, he is safe ; for 
has he not committed his all into the hands of Him whose is 
the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever ? 
Two words include it all, — " Our Father." That is enough. 
That sums up the Catholic faith which all men, always, 
everywhere, believe. 

This is why Paul scorned the idea of another gospel. He 
knew well that there is, and can be, only one gospel, — the 
immense good tidings which Jesus told out to men, the 
tidings that God is " our Father," and that, therefore, man 
is " our brother," that mankind are " one race of noble 
equals " before God. 

This, then, is the one only religion of the universe. It is 
the " everlasting gospel." It is the gospel "as it was in the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." 

Friend, friend, you and I will always be helped and 
strengthened by coming into contact with this sweet, this 
divine, this utter trust in " our Father " that dwelt in the 
heart of Jesus as in no other. Drift away from this, with 



FATHER, SOX, AND HOLY GHOST. I I 

never so many philosophies or sciences or advanced think- 
ings drifting away in the same boat with you, and the farther 
you drift, the nearer you come to chaos and the dark. 

It is our just boast, as liberal Christians, that we have 
emphasized, as never before, the doctrine of the Father. No 
divided worship. Supreme allegiance only to the Supreme. 
Infinite adoration of the Infinite alone. All grandeur of the 
finite, all adorable qualities in a finite form, strictly subordi- 
nated to the Infinite, in whose bosom they dwell, and from 
whose bosom they proceed. That is the first, the cardinal 
article of our faith. 

Nevertheless, since we are so firmly grounded on our cen- 
tral doctrine of the infinite Father, we can afford, without 
endangering our hold upon that, to give to all finite agencies 
of blessing their full due ; knowing that He is the great 
original Source and Fountain of them all. 

It is part of human sanity to weigh the relative importance 
of things considered in their bearings upon man and his 
world. It is quite true that the sun is only a ^tar of the 
third class, that he is but one small member of the vast host 
of stars. But he is a star, and claims kinship with them all. 
To us his importance is supreme. To our life he weighs 
more than all other stars put together. From his life our 
bodily life springs, as water from a vast fountain. 

So the sum total of the divine energy which has been, up 
to this hour, expended upon man, is but a small fraction of 
that vast force of God included in the galaxy of which our 
system is a part. But to us it is of more importance than 
all the rest. It is the amount due to the human race, appro- 
priated by it, incarnated in it. 

All the divine force that is in and around Sirius and his 
attendant worlds was not so important to Rugby school as 
one brave man, Thomas Arnold by name, governing Rugby 
school wisely, in the faith and fear of God. The spirit in 
that one man was, to a vast extent, the present God in that 
school, — brought more of God into that school than the 
whole starry heavens did. 

For mankind, then, I believe that the influence of God, 



12 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



incarnated in man, is as great as that of God outside of man. 
Incessantly, perhaps always, when God blesses a human soul, 
some other human soul is the vehicle of blessing, — is, at 
least, a necessary part of the blessing. 

The Spirit of God brooded in all its fulness over all the 
geologic ages. But the cold, reptilian blood could feel but 
little of the gracious influence. Not in moss or seaweed, 
not in shark or saurian, not in lion or mastodon, — only in 
the body of a man, — could the fulness of the Godhead 
dwell. But when Jesus feels the waves of the divine love 
flooding his breast, then, and not till then, can God enter 
into his world, conquering and to conquer. Thus we learn 
to connect the doctrine of the Son with the name of the 
Father. 

2. The Son. " The brightness of the Father's glory, and 
the express image of his person." "Who, being in the form 
of God, took upon himself the form of a slave, and became 
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore 
God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name 
which is above every name ; that in the name of Jesus every 
knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth ; 
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is 
Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 

This is the form in which the Church of the first century 
put her confession of the doctrine of the Son. It is the 
task of this and the coming ages to take up all that is true 
and noble in the ancient confession, and include all the 
glory, gifts, graces, divinity of the Son inside of the circle 
of human glory, gifts, and graces, as the grandest illustra- 
tion, part, and parcel of the divinity, the sonship of man. 
Only two classes of spirit in the universe, — the Infinite and 
the Finite; and these two are one. Whatever of divine 
power and glory Jesus, the Son of God, had, he -had it be- 
cause he was Jesus, the Son of Man. He who robs Jesus 
of any glory that was his robs himself, robs mankind of the 
grandest illustration of man's high possibilities. 

There must be room enough in the religion of the future 



FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST. 



13 



for the worship of God in man, for the adoration of divine 
qualities made human. The immense majority of mankind 
absolutely need this, before they can spiritually grow. If 
I were an Australian savage, and knew enough to do it, I 
would kneel in the dust before some good Englishman, put 
his foot upon my neck, and beg him to take me on his own 
terms, and make me a man! And so, brother man, if you 
feel intensely your need of the divine qualities that dwelt in 
the heart of Jesus, and if you long for his very being to take 
possession of you, you have the highest right to ask for 
this. 

Gather together all your titles of honor, crown him with 
many crowns, kneel low before him, if that is the natural 
expression of your present relations to him ; but understand 
that it is the glory of the Son of Man that you are thus rev- 
erencing ; that it is the divine in man, the possible divine 
in all men, which he whom you love represents. You can- 
not love him too much, if in him you love the divine sonship 
of man. Every honor thus bestowed upon him becomes 
a prophecy of the glorious achievements of the race, out of 
whose bosom he sprung. For mankind is the stuff out of 
which the archangels are made. Thrones, kingdoms, princi- 
palities, powers, all heavenly stature, all divine nobleness, all 
spirit possibility, lie asleep in man. 

The divinity of Jesus, then, types, prophesies the divinity 
of man. Man, at last, will be a partaker of the divine nature. 
As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons 
of God. Jesus was most divine, because he was the most 
completely human. Jesus represents sonship, because he is 
a son. So much for the first part of the ancient confession, 
the divinity of Jesus. 

The second concerns the headship of Jesus. " He was obe- 
dient to death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God 
also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is 
above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and 
things under the earth." This is the grand style of the first 
century. The first century sang its belief in poetry. The 



i 4 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



nineteenth speaks its belief in prose. The first century 
looked mainly Godward. The nineteenth looks mainly man- 
ward. The first century spoke of God-appointed rulers. 
The nineteenth speaks of man-elected ones. Let us, then, in 
this matter adopt the nineteenth-century tone, and see where 
it will land us. 

Let us, then, reduce this question of leadership to its 
lowest terms. Let us agree to speak under the mark, and 
therefore prosaically. To have a head is a necessity inherent 
in all collective human activities. No government, no army, 
no political party, no school, no family, no cricket or base-ball 
club, can do without a head. To the immense Human Nat- 
ure this is also true, if ever the total Humanity is to feel 
itself an organized unit ; if ever there is to come a time 
in the grander future, when there shall be gathered together 
into one all the children of God that are scattered abroad. 
Who, then, among all the sons of men, is to perform this 
essential function ? 

We may dismiss at once the consideration of all forgotten 
leaders ; for a social faculty so pre-eminent as to render its 
possessor fit to be the permanent social leader of the whole 
human race would have manifested itself so powerfully that 
it never could have been forgotten. Moreover, the inherent 
physiological improbability of such a personality having, 
existed in the barbaric ages is at least as great as the in- 
herent improbability of a Newton having then existed. The 
organic conditions rendered both equally impossible. We 
are thus shut up to the consideration of the known religious 
leaders, — those who already occupy a conspicuous place in 
history. Who, in all the historic ages, have possessed the 
greatest power of making men feel their sonship to God and 
their brotherhood as men ? — for this is the quality the relig- 
ious head needs. 

Four names, and four only, stand conspicuously out from 
all the rest : Confucius, Mohammed, Buddha, and Jesus. 
Mankind, busied for some ages in searching for its leader, has 
already, by a process of natural selection, concentrated itself 
on these four names as the fittest to survive. Let us look at 
the claims of each. 



FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST. 



15 



Confucius is the great leader of the Chinese. His service 
in uniting: the Chinese has been immense, and will Ions; 
continue to be so. But his department is confessedly prov- 
incial. No one dreams that his influence will ever pene- 
trate with equal power beyond the Chinese empire. His 
universal leadership, then, is out of the question. 

Mohammed was a grand torch, throwing a smoky light on 
the surrounding darkness. Of vast use in the semi-civilized 
ages, useful still among semi-civilized tribes, his influence 
over human thought is plainly declining. His inspiration, in 
great measure derived from that of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, is, on the whole, of a lower type. The Crescent wanes 
before the Cross. 

Buddha has a more universal message. The first great 
missionary religion, Buddhism alone can be fitly compared 
with Christianity, for its tender compassion for the whole 
human race, and its longing for their deliverance. Both 
preach exhaustless mercy, pity, forgiveness of man to man. 
Buddhism and Christianity alone of all religions have the true 
universal enthusiasm for humanity. Confucius sets forth the 
duty of man in plain, manly prose. Buddha and Jesus sing- 
it : with both, it is the poetry, the romance, the ecstasy of 
religion. 

But Buddhism, so royally large manward, is weak and 
vague and uncertain Godward. It cannot show us the 
Father. Offspring alike and antagonist of Brahminism, this 
was the fatal legacy that antagonism left. Brahminism was 
absorbed wholly in God ; Buddhism, wholly in man. Wor- 
ship was the Brahmin's sole business. The deliverance was 
the Buddhist's. Forever a noble witness to the second com- 
mandment, Buddha must learn from Jesus the full glory of 
the first. 

A poor Siamese girl, who had been converted from 
Buddhism to Christianity, when on her dying-bed comforted 
her distracted and terror-stricken mother, by telling her a 
beautiful dream from which she had just awakened. " I saw 
the Lord Buddha and the Lord Jesus standing close together 
in heaven ; both of their faces smiled a welcome to me ; both 



i6 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



looked lovingly on each other ; each clasped the other's hand. 
But the stature of the Lord Jesus was the loftiest." 

I believe that in the end the verdict of mankind will confirm 
the dream of that dying girl. That is, I believe that in the 
end mankind will elect Jesus as its central religious leader, 
and, having elected him to a trust so vast, will be largely, gen- 
erously, loyal to him. On the other hand, the leader must be 
utterly loyal to the human hearts that choose him. The least 
display of egotism, of presumption, would mar the grandeur 
of the relation. The leader must be the first to discover, to 
recognize, to employ, to rejoice in power of the same order as 
his own, or of a different order. Napoleon's greatest weak- 
ness was that, while he made admirable subordinates, he 
made no great men. What he wanted was brigadier-generals, 
corps-commanders, at most a Ney or a Lannes, but no Von 
Moltke or Wellington. If Jesus were such a one, his leader- 
ship would sooner or later come to an end, because not 
securely based on the universal humanity. It does not follow 
that the social leader should be also the leader in art or 
science or culture. Mankind needs for a social leader the 
one who has the largest social qualities, who possesses most 
of that divine magnetism which unites man with man, and 
man with God. If Jesus has most of this quality, sooner or 
later all'men will acknowledge the fact. - 

There are doubtless many earnest Christian people to 
whom such a mode of presenting this high subject is bald, 
poor, and prosaic in the extreme. But let them remember 
that if unquestioning loyalty to the leader and the cause he 
represents ; if a joyful sense of belonging to a vast organized 
body of humanity, a whole family in earth and heaven ; 
if a resolute determination to do his full share of the work of 
that family is in the brain and heart of a man who thinks 
thus, — it, after all, comes to the same thing as the lofty 
poetry of the first century. 

■ But what are you going to do with men who love and work 
for the principles of Jesus, but disown his leadership ? Just 
what the great body of anti-slavery men, who put the thing- 
through, did to those sweet but crotchety persons who 



FATHER, SOX, AND HOLY GHOST. I J 

refused to vote anti-slavery, — fellowship them, love them, 
know that they are on our part. They are working for Christ, 
because they are working for the cause which he loves better 
than himself. They do not know enough as yet to see that 
humanity must be organized into a single whole. They will 
see it, when it shines upon them like the sun. 

But, after all, no prosaic nineteenth century can quite 
prevent an outburst of poetic, of religious, enthusiasm in the 
man who still believes what I have taken for granted through- 
out this argument, — that the human family is a unit ; that 
there is only one family in heaven and earth. It is impossible 
to tear away Christianity as an historical religion from its key- 
thought of the unity of all the worlds ; of the one kingdom 
of God penetrating all things alike in earth and heaven; the 
thought that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses ; 
that the Church triumphant in heaven sympathizes, heart- 
beat for heart-beat, with the Church on earth ; that the 
uniting of men here types the union there as well as here. 
I give mankind on earth a thousand years, to discover beyond 
a peradventure the tremendous fact that the immense 
majority of mankind, the enormously preponderating mass of 
human nature, is not on the surface of the earth, but above 
and around it. The central nucleus of Human Power is there, 
not here. It will take a thousand years for our earnest, 
noble-hearted, wrong-headed Frederic Harrisons to learn this. 
One thing is plain. If the life immortal be anything at all, 
be sure it is most solidly real ; be sure, indeed, that it is the 
central reality. 

Christianity stands or falls with the doctrine of immor- 
tality. Two worships in the future, two mighty hopes, — 
God and the city of God. 

The Father above all, through all, in all ; the city of God, 
the great company of that Father's wise and faithful sons and 
daughters, with Jesus standing in the midst, — that is the 
home of the soul. That is the dear, dear country of which 
we all, please God, shall one day know ourselves to be 
citizens. 



3 



i8 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



3. The Holy Ghost, Inspirer of the Church universal, who 
spake by the prophets ; Life-giver, Life-bringer, sign and seal 
of Christ's mission, — this is the substance of the first-century 
confession. " By the mystery of thy holy incarnation," says 
the mediaeval litany of the Church of England, "by thy 
nativity, by thy baptism, fasting, and temptation ; by thine 
agony and bloody sweat ; by thy cross and passion ; by thy 
precious death and burial; by thy glorious resurrection and 
ascension ; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost, — good 
Lord, deliver us ! " Let us interpret this doctrine also in 
the words of to-day. The sign and seal of the mission of 
Jesus was and is the passage of the spirit that was in Him, 
into the hearts and lives of others. 

The Holy Ghost, says the ancient confession, proceedeth 
from the Father and the Son. The Holy Ghost is God, but 
not God faraway yonder in the depth of space, but God nigh, 
in the mouth, in the heart, brain, lips, and nerves of men ; 
God alive in the breasts of his children ; God working inside 
the limits of man's life ; God inside the thoughts of men, 
bringing every thought into captivity to the law of Christ ; 
God inside the hearts of men, causing the peace which 
passeth all understanding to rule in them ; God also passing 
from breast to breast ; God using one consecrated life to 
influence another life, and that other another, and on and 
on, in endless succession, until the circle of mankind is 
completed. 

If Jesus did not go away, the Comforter could not come, 
says the fourth Gospel. The spirit proceeding from the 
Father and the Son could not come, — that is, the spirit of 
the Father passing first through the being of the beloved 
Son, mingled up with the ardent temperament, the poetic 
tenderness, the faithful friendship, the consecrated life- 
purpose, the royal brother-heart of Jesus, could not come. 

" But, surely, here at least, you claim divine honors for the 
Son of Man." Yes : all the honors of divine sonship ; all 
the honors due to the beloved of the Father, full of grace 
and truth. But it is just this same honor that you must 
covet for yourself : just this same honor, if you also are 



FATHER, SON, AXD HOLY GHOST. 



19 



faithful unto death, will be given to you in God's heaven as 
your crown of life. It may be that you have spent a life- 
time in an obscure internal conflict with some sin or weak- 
ness to which you are peculiarly liable ; spent a lifetime in 
obscurely illustrating some patient virtue of slow growth. 
Doubtless, this life of God in your soul has quickened here 
and there a soul whose path crossed yours. Nay, you have 
often timidly blessed God, when even your own eyes could 
see that this was so. Even in your earth life, the Spirit pro- 
ceeding from the Father, and from you his son or daughter, 
has done its natural work of help and blessing. So in the 
three short years of Jesus' earthly ministry, he shed blessing 
on all the hearts he could reach. But, since he passed from 
earth to heaven, he has blessed uncounted millions. There 
you, too, will find that your capacity to help and bless, by 
the passage of the Spirit through you, has immeasurably 
enlarged. 

Firdusi, the great epic poet of Persia, lived a life of pov- 
erty and neglect. The Sultan Mahmoud had promised him 
a piece of gold for every line in his vast poem. Firdusi 
desired to spend this wealth in bringing a copious supply of 
water to his parched native town. But envy and royal 
ingratitude for long years cheated him of his life's labor ; 
and when, at last, the camels bearing one hundred thousand 
pieces of gold were entering the town at one gate, Firdusi's 
funeral was passing out at another. 

Such a destiny may be yours ; just as Jesus had to pass 
into the heavens, before the full privilege of directing the 
channels of the Father's grace to the needs of thirsting 
souls, far and near, could be tasted by him. Your faithful- 
ness on earth will have given you the power to direct, 
through your own being, the channels of the water of life to 
souls that thirst as yours once thirsted. Your angelhood 
will consist in the power of doing this. If that is the reward 
you covet, it will be yours, as surely as God is God. You 
have been a cripple, a deformed person, and have learned 
the lesson of never repining. You will be sent to succor 
poor deformed or crippled human souls, that without your 



20 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



help might have cursed the day they were born. You have 
uncomplainingly borne the prison and the chain. There you 
will be God's hand of pity, stretched out to all prisoners and 
captives. You have felt all your days the pinch of grinding 
poverty, and yet, being poor, felt rich in God's blessing and 
presence. There you will be one of God's strong and tender 
guardians of the poor, able to impart to all such trust in the 
poor man's God. 

What a gospel, then, is ours to preach ! With it we can 
sweep the world. The Father of an infinite goodness and 
majesty ; the sonship of man, ushered in by the bright pro- 
phetic sonship of Jesus ; the coming of the Holy Ghost ; 
the sum total of the life-force of God in man, — why should 
we not march on at once to victory, — we spokesmen and 
prophets of the higher thought ? 

And yet, — and yet what do we see? Little deserted lib- 
eral churches are scattered over the land. For a brief 
season, red-hot shot were fired into the orthodox ranks from 
these audacious little forts. But to-day no foot travels 
thither : grass and weeds choke up the pathway to the door, 
because, when the firing was over, the peace eternal did not, 
in any large measure, descend. Forlorn human lives were, 
after all, not greatly helped. The kingdom of God was, after 
all, not largely brought in. The Holy Ghost did not, in any 
fulness, proceed. The Comforter did not, after all, come to 
any very great extent. Whose fault was this ? 

Partly, it was the fault of the congregations so gathered. 
What, for instance, can be expected of a congregation who 
have a lively sense that it is their pastor's duty to appear at 
church every Sunday, — for have they not hired him so to 
do ? But they can say very truly., with the men in the 
parable, No man hath hired us. How much Holy Ghost, 
think you, could proceed from such a congregation ? 

Partly the fault of the ministers. " These are our failures." 
said Beau Brummel's footman, when caught taking down- 
stairs, in a clothes-basket, a couple of hundred creased white 
neckties. Clerical necks are no longer so universally draped 
in colors suggestive of the robes of the saints, but the clerical 



FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST. 21 

failures continue to be carried down the backstairs of every 
denomination. 

But partly it was owing to the working of a great organic 
law, which is only just beginning to be understood. No 
new and higher thought ever came to mankind, when man- 
kind was perfectly ready to receive it. Physiologically, it is 
quite impossible that this should ever occur; for the organi- 
zations receiving the higher thought were moulded in the 
type of the lower. The higher thought has to modify 
organism, before it can have a fit habitation. No slave can 
ever be fit for freedom at the moment when he attains it, 
any more than any animal can ever be quite fitted for a 
changed environment at the moment of the change. In like 
manner, the higher thought in religion comes to a generation 
whose religious organism was moulded by a lower concep- 
tion. The organism, developed by a coarser stimulus, can- 
not at first feel the force of the finer motive. 

Mankind still needs a hell, said a despairing Universalist 
once, as he gave up the ministry. The lower faculties of 
man dwell in a house of cedar, fully organized and equipped 
for household service ; but the ark of God always dwelleth 
in curtains. Always, then, God gives his new gifts in his 
own good time, which is just before human conditions are 
fitted to receive the gifts. Did he wait till men were com- 
pletely ready, — ready on all sides of their nature, — he would 
wait forever in vain. For the gift is itself the instrument 
by which human conditions are gradually made fit to receive 
it, to hold it fast, to incarnate it. Not till it is incarnated, 
worked into blood, bone, brain, and nerve, is it safely the 
property of man. 

It takes a long time to co-ordinate an animal to any great 
change in its circumstances. A sudden change of climate 
will destroy whole classes of animals, while those which sur- 
vive will only very slowly become adapted to the new circum- 
stances. Certain greyhounds, says Darwin, were sent out 
from Europe to course the hares in the table-lands of the 
Andes. But the air in those elevated plateaus was so rare- 
fied, that the greyhounds' chests could not contain enough 



22 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



of it, pant as they might, to enable them to run fast enough 
to catch their hare. But the offspring of these greyhounds, 
born to breathe that rarefied air, had larger chests, and so 
could breathe a larger quantity of air ; and so they caught 
the hares. 

To organize a large capacity of inspiration, you must keep 
breathing it in all the time, remembering that your present 
spiritual lungs are not yet fully capable of the task. Only 
by the incessantly repeated act of breathing can you gain at 
last the organic power you seek. 

Our danger, as spokesmen and servants of the increasing- 
Spirit, is, that we breathe it in intermittingly, fitfully, slug- 
gishly, or sometimes stop breathing altogether. 

If the facial or seventh pair of nerves be divided in a horse 
just beneath his ears, the horse dies literally of want of 
breath. This division does not injure the horse's lungs in 
the least, or the nerves directly connected with them. It 
simply causes the nostrils to collapse ; and, as the horse can 
only breathe through his nostrils, the channel of communica- 
tion between his lungs and the outward air is stopped up, and 
the animal dies. There is a facial paralysis of this sort, only 
too common in the spirit of man. Not quite so suddenly, 
however, you would say. This is true enough in most cases. 
Men are slow to believe in the possibility of any sud- 
den, irremediable catastrophe ever happening to themselves. 
They see other men plunging suddenly into outrageous vice 
or crime ; but such things will never come near to them 
or to those dear to them. 

Let us, then, take another physiological illustration, which 
is much more generally applicable. If you divide the pneu- 
mogastric nerve, the only effect on the lungs is that respira- 
tion is retarded. The animal lies comfortably in a corner, 
simply doing nothing. If he be aroused, and compelled to 
move about, the respirations quicken for a time, becoming 
slower again, directly he lies down. By the second or third 
day, the number of respirations is reduced to four or five a 
minute, and the animal is still more disposed to lie still and 
do nothing. Death, however, invariably takes place in less 



FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST. 



23 



than a week. The animal is not convulsed, and does not 
suffer any pain; it simply gets more and more sluggish, 
more and more averse to be aroused, and the breathing keeps 
getting less and less, till the end comes. He dies more 
slowly than our horse did, but for the same cause — for want 
of breath. 

Do you recognize the portrait ? Unitarian people and Uni- 
tarian churches have, many of them, been posing to be 
taken in this attitude for a long time. Oh, for a trumpet- 
blast of the Holy Ghost, to rouse such dying sluggards ! 

Whoso longs to be a knight of the Holy Ghost, whoso 
desires to be the soldier and servant of this, to be the pos- 
sessor and communicator of this, let him understand that it is 
of the essence of the Holy Ghost to proceed. You are filled 
with all joy and peace in believing. See to it that that joy 
passes into the lives of those with whom you live. Suspect 
any Holy Ghost that does not pass through you to bless 
others. The gracious Spirit abides, and can abide with you, 
only under the condition that it is perpetually proceeding 
from you to some one else. 

This Spirit is yours, — yes! aye, it longs and tends to 
become your very self. But the more it is yours, the more 
sure you become that it is yours not by private, but by 
public right ; yours, not because you are John or Jane, but 
because you are man or woman. 

Do not say, Oh, I leave such heights as those to professing 
Christians ! Friend, every man must profess manhood ; and 
only thus can you Obtain a complete, a noble manhood. Until 
the Holy Ghost speaks through you, the word you were in- 
tended to say does not get itself uttered. Not always, 
not half the time, perhaps not at all, through speech must 
your thought be told ; but always in act and life, — told in 
your own way, by your own temperament, through your own 
specialty, whether as business man, or thinker, or inventor, 
or artist, or husband, or father, or friend, — told it must be, 
if you are to feel yourself a son of God. 

It is absurd to suppose that this consecration is a new 
thing. It is as old as the first human heart that God ever 



2 4 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



touched. It was in Jesus so strongly that through him it 
has streamed down the ages. The Christian Church has 
always had it. But each age has its new inspiration ; and to 
this age comes the call to consecrate all the powers of man's 
intellect, all the achievements of man's will, as well as all 
the longings of his heart, to the blessed cause. This done, 
a clearness of thought in religion our fathers never knew 
will be ours. This done, religion will seem not only the high 
romance, — the noble ideal of man's life, — but the uniter of 
all his scattered thoughts ; the consecrator of all his aims ; 
the lifting up into heavenly places of these absolutely essen- 
tial human powers, which too often have seemed common 
and unclean. 

That is a poor, emasculated gospel, which does not in- 
clude — aye, claim, — the whole of the normal activities of 
men. Trade and commerce, art and literature, thought and 
science, are part and parcel of God's idea of man, — part, 
therefore, of his gracious will ; part, therefore, of his glorious 
gospel, which is committed to our trust. For God and his 
cause in the world I claim all invention and discovery, all 
sound systems of thought, all activities of trade, all daring 
enterprize by land and sea ; for whatever enlarges man's life, 
whatever greatens and strengthens man, whatever subdues 
the earth and its hidden forces to man's will, is part and 
parcel of God's will. His is the manly strength that throws 
the world. All subjugation of metal or of stone ; of earth 
or water ; of light, heat, and electricity; all 'the noble gains 
of man, accumulated through all the ages, are God's will. 
Through all these, his purpose streams. His inspiration, his 
onward-moving power, is in all these. Whatever man needs, 
God needs for him ; wherever man triumphs, God triumphs in 
him. " O God, by these things men live, and in these is the 
life of thy Spirit ! " 

I appeal, then, to you men, to whom the world's work is 
so largely committed, — on behalf of that Spirit, part of whose 
will and purpose is told out in steamship, railway, canal, 
bank, store, workshop, house, field, and garden ; from whose 
thought spring the city and the State ; part of whose inspi- 



FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST. 



25 



ration has to be incarnated, made a fact, by legislative assem- 
blies, courts of justice, marts of trade, skilful inventions, 
wise adjustments of means to ends, — consecrate all your 
work to God and man : make that noble, and then all true 
work becomes prayer. That is your offering, that your sac- 
rifice. Thus can you organize the Holy Ghost. 

I appeal to you, women, to whom so much of the world's 
romance, beauty, ideality, grace, mercy, affection, and heav- 
enly peace is entrusted, — on behalf of that God, part of 
whose will and purpose is told out by the glory of flower and 
star; by purple cloud and sky of blue ; by the grace of human 
homes ; by the love-light in mother eyes ; part of whose 
glorious gospel is best told out by a true woman's heart, by 
a woman's gracious ways, by the inspiration of a woman's 
finest instincts and tenderest feelings ; that God whose will 
cannot be brought to pass without millions of woman angels 
to execute it, — welcome the incoming spirit : organize it : 
be its messengers, its poets, its finest, most fitting instru- 
ments. Then comes the statelier Eden back to men. Then 
springs the crowning race of human kind. 



4 



THE RELATION OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY 
TO LIBERALISM. 

By Prof. CHARLES C. EVERETT, D.D. 

The word "liberal" as applied to religion has two meanings, 
which, though sometimes confounded, are entirely distinct. 
In its primary sense, it signifies that one has passed out from 
the limitations of earlier beliefs. In its secondary meaning, 
it describes the temper of mind that should accompany such 
emancipation ; namely, «a genial sympathy with differing 
views, or at least a kindly toleration of them. A man who 
is an advanced liberal in the first of these senses may be 
very illiberal in the second ; while one of the most liberal 
Christians, according to the second significance of the word, 
that I ever knew, was so conservative in his own views as to 
be almost a Roman Catholic. I mark this distinction simply 
in order to make clear that in this essay I shall use the 
word "liberal" wholly in its original sense. By the progress 
toward liberalism I mean the movement away from the older 
views known, under one form or another, as orthodox. 

While I thus recognize the terminus a quo of this move- 
ment, I shall here recognize no terminus ad quern. I shall 
consider the process chiefly, if not wholly, in its negative 
aspect. There is a point where liberalism ceases to be 
Christian, there is a point where it even ceases to be relig- 
ious. In the judgment of some, these points would coincide ; 
in that of others, they would differ. Some would place them 
earlier, some later ; but such points all would recognize, each 
from his own position. In other words, each of us would 
probably find in the history of this movement which does not 
rest short of the grossest materialism, points where it might 
well have stopped. These points I shall not here notice. It 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. 2J 

is to a very great extent the same influences that are working- 
through the whole process ; and it is these influences alone 
with which we have to do. But, while I have here to con- 
sider merely negative relations, I believe that there is a posi- 
tive aspect which is yet more important. This movement of 
destruction will prove to have been not wholly in vain. The 
essential truth of religion will come from the fires purified 
and glorified. 

My special theme is the relation of philosophy to liberal- 
ism. From what has been said it will appear that the sub- 
ject is to be treated historically. I can give only scattered 
fragments of a history, indeed, but I shall give them as such. 
I shall recognize -an existing habit of thought, and seek 
some of the causes which have produced it. I shall state 
premises and conclusions, pausing rarely, if ever, to express 
approbation or dissent. 

The relation of the history of philosophy to that of the- 
ology suggests much matter of curious interest. It might 
be thought, at first, that the two lines of history would run 
parallel to one another. Philosophy and theology, rightly 
understood, are but different aspects of the same thing. If 
theology be true, and if philosophy be also true, the latter 
expresses in the most abstract form what the other expresses 
more concretely. They differ thus as inner and outer. The 
two histories should then be but different forms of the same 
history, the stages of the one corresponding accurately with 
those of the other. In fact, however, this is not the case ; 
and, as we look more closely, we shall see reasons for the 
difference. 

One essential principle upon which the history of these 
different forms of thought depends is found in the relation of 
each to its own earlier results. Theology, in general, clings 
to the past. In its narrower forms, it seeks to preserve a 
minute and accurate identity with the system that preceded 
it. In its more liberal forms, it seeks to preserve this iden- 
tity in regard to certain matters which it deems fundamental. 
In philosophy, on the other hand, each system seeks after 
originality. While theology strives to conceal even from 



28 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



itself the differences that actually do arise, philosophy seeks 
often to exaggerate them. This difference in the suscepti- 
bility of each to change is one of degree only. Theology 
cannot escape the drift which is bearing it steadily, however 
slowly, from its old moorings ; and no system of philosophy 
can wholly escape from the hold which the past has upon it. 
Still the difference is great enough to keep the two from 
being in perfect accord with one another. 

There is another element of difference still more fundamen- 
tal, that works toward the same end. This arises from the 
fact already referred to ; namely, the concrete nature of the 
one and the greater abstractness of the other. Philosophy, 
dealing as it does with abstract principles, finds it more easy 
to attain the unity which its nature requires, by separating 
these principles than by combining them. Its tendency is to 
seize first one of these and then another. It thus swings 
from one extreme to the opposite. A system may appear 
wholly unconnected with one that has preceded it, and yet 
may have the greatest of all connections with it, in that both 
are parts of a common whole. Theology, while not wholly 
free from similar influences and results, yet, through its con- 
creteness, moves more as a whole. It has to satisfy, to a 
certain degree, at every point, the whole spiritual nature of 
man. It is therefore less exposed than philosophy to sudden 
and violent changes. Thus the two histories follow each 
its own course and its own law. The two act upon one 
another, indeed ; but this interaction seems to a great extent 
accidental. There must be, however, some general prin- 
ciples or methods of influence ; and a study of the mutual 
relation of the two in a large number of instances must, it 
would seem, enable us to form some sort of generalization in 
the matter. At least, the experiment is one well worth 
trying. It is my purpose to illustrate by two or three promi- 
nent examples the influence of philosophy upon theology in 
the later history of Christianity. 

It is in the later history of Christianity alone that the con- 
ditions exist as I have described them. During the early and 
mediaeval history of the Church, theology and philosophy 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. 



29 



were to a large extent one. Christianity gathered from the 
past life of the world the best results of its various civiliza- 
tions. It blended the fairest products of the political econ- 
omy of Rome, of the philosophy of Greece, and of the spirit- 
uality of the Hebrew. Starting with these elements, it formed 
a mighty and complex system, which grew ever into a fuller 
development of the whole and of every part. Philosophy 
was intensely active ; but with few, and generally, as far as 
the history of the Church is concerned, unimportant excep- 
tions, philosophy was strictly the handmaid of religion. It 
was willingly a servant. It was even unconscious of its 
servitude. It received the materials which the Church put 
into its hands, and elaborated them under its direction. 

Had the development of the moral principle been in har- 
mony with that of those already named, their common 
growth might, it would seem, have gone on indefinitely. In 
the lack of ethical completeness is found the source of the 
downfall of this imposing ecclesiastical structure. Its exter- 
nal authority was the first to give way. The immoralities of 
Rome and of its policy drove the honest German mind into 
revolt. The doctrinal development still continued for a short 
time even in the dismembered Church. This reached its 
highest point with Calvin. From this point, dogmatic disin- 
tegration followed in the steps of political disintegration. 

There is something sad in watching the decay of any per- 
fect organism, even when we know that it is to give place to 
something better than itself ; and the mediaeval Church was 
perhaps the most magnificent organism that the world has 
ever seen. Henceforth, however, the process of breaking up 
the results of its centuries of growth was to be universal and 
continuous. The intellectual history of the Church was to 
become as fragmentary as its external history. As there 
were to be churches instead of the Church, so there were to 
be systems in the place of the one great system of religious 
belief. And the succession of these systems was to be in 
general in one direction. It was to be away from the old 
dogmatism, from a pronounced and all-important supernatu- 
ralism, in the direction of secularism and naturalism. 



30 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



In the general dismemberment, philosophy found itself 
emancipated. Though at first, like the newly-freed slave 
who brings to his old master the wonted loyalty and obedi- 
ence, it maintained its old allegiance to the Church, yet the 
fact remained that it was free, and that henceforth its history 
must be an independent one. No matter what was the rela- 
tion of the individual philosopher to the Church, philosophy 
itself had become an independent power, and henceforth 
must act upon the Church, not from within, but from without. 
Whether it would or not, it must henceforth contribute to 
that process of disintegration, which it often strove vainly to 
arrest. 

In the person of Descartes, philosophy began its successful 
career of freedom. The change was at first, as I have 
already intimated, hardly noticeable. Descartes sought to 
strengthen the foundations of the religion of the Church. 
He sought to lay deep and strong the foundations of spiritual 
truth as the Church had accepted it. He believed that he 
had done this. What he had really done was to introduce a 
disturbing element, the results of which cannot even now be 
fully calculated. What had been accomplished was, in legal 
phrase, a change of venue. The questions which had before 
been decided by ecclesiastical authority were now brought 
before the bar of human reason. There had of course been 
already in the Church many attempts to support its doctrines 
by human argument. Through its whole history such at- 
tempts had formed a large and not the least brilliant portion 
of its literature. The work of Anselm may be cited as a 
striking example. But I think that never before within the 
Church had been asserted in such an absolute manner the 
right and intellectual necessity of throwing aside all beliefs 
that were not approved by reason or native to the soul. 
Before, human reason had been employed as an advocate. 
Now, it was seated on the bench, with full judicial authority. 
If at first its decisions shall be in accordance with the prece- 
, dents established by the old tribunal, soon it will feel its own 
power, and establish precedents of its own. " Beware," cries 
Emerson, "when the great God lets loose a thinker on this 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. 



31 



planet ! " With Descartes, the race of thinkers was let 
loose. 

It is interesting to see in the writings of Descartes how 
constantly this change of method makes itself felt. It is 
shown very clearly in the discussions which he carried on 
with the distinguished men to whom he had submitted his 
essays. They would sometimes use the old methods, would 
quote the ecclesiastical authorities and reason upon this 
basis. Descartes, in his reply, would sometimes, for a mo- 
ment, fall in with their method, and answer them in kind. 
He would play a moment with their weapons, to show that he 
was master of them also ; but soon he would throw them 
aside, and take his own. Even if ecclesiastical authority was 
on his side, he preferred to rest his case upon that of 
reason. 

The change, which was hardly noticeable as manifested in 
Descartes, showed its full gravity and ominousness in the 
work of Spinoza. Descartes, in spite of bis attempt to 
emancipate himself wholly from the beliefs in which he had 
been educated, so that nothing should remain that was not 
seen to be absolutely true, and in spite of his belief that he 
had done this, probably never succeeded, even for a moment, 
in thus placing himself over against his earlier faith. Such 
an achievement his whole previous mental history probably 
made impossible for him. Spinoza had been trained under 
different circumstances. Born a Jew, he had been excom- 
municated from the Jewish, and had never joined the Chris- 
tian, Church. In reality, he had probably passed through 
the process of disencumbering himself from old beliefs much 
more thoroughly than Descartes, whose disciple he seems at 
first to have been to some extent. He soon saw the faults 
in the system of his master, if indeed he had not seen them 
from the first. Questions that Descartes treated as a theo- 
logian, Spinoza treated as a philosopher. With Descartes, 
God was one substance among other substances : with 
Spinoza, he was the one substance in which all things con- 
sist. With Descartes, God created all things according to 
his will : according to Spinoza, by the necessity of his nature. 



32 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



The created universe, according to Spinoza, bears the same 
relation to God that the radii and sines of a circle bear to it. 
According to him, to attribute to God freedom of choice 
would be to attribute to him imperfection ; for choice be- 
tween two courses implies either lack of ability to accom- 
plish both, or that one is not worthy of accomplishment ; and 
to affirm that God has a thought that is unworthy of accom- 
plishment is to imply an imperfection equivalent to that of 
inability to accomplish what is worthy. Spinoza denied that 
God wrought for an end, that is, he denied the influence of 
final causes in his action : for to act for a final cause implies 
that the means used for a proposed end are less worthy than 
it ; and God can do nothing that has not in itself absolute 
worth. The idea of personality in relation to the Divine 
Being was to him meaningless. Spinoza held these views 
with a religiousness of faith which might seem, at first sight, 
somewhat foreign to them. When they were published to 
the world, they won for him the name of Atheist. Theolo- 
gians could not sufficiently utter their horror of such godless 
speculation. Yet these views were to be adopted to a great 
extent into Christian speculation ; and the stone which these 
builders rejected was to become the corner-stone of at least a 
very important portion of the new theology. 

They obtained their entrance into the Christian Church 
through the medium of Schleiermacher. I do not say that 
Schleiermacher was, strictly speaking, a Spinozist. This he 
would deny. In his philosophy, he criticised freely the 
system of Spinoza. He introduced into his philosophy a 
refinement that he believed lacking to that of Spinoza. 
From a philosophical point of view, these distinctions are 
important ; though, were I discussing the matter with a phi- 
losophical purpose, I should urge that his criticisms upon 
Spinoza were not wholly justifiable, and that his system was 
hardly an improvement upon that of his predecessor. But 
these differences do not concern us here. They were not 
such as affected materially his theology. They were cer- 
tainly not such as to bring him nearer to the common relig- 
ious thought of Christendom. His well-known apostrophe, 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. 



S3 



" Offer with me reverently a lock to the Shade of the holy 
and outcast Spinoza," and the glowing words which accom- 
pany it, show how filled he was with reverence for his great 
master. While in his philosophic flights he sought to rise to 
a realm of abstraction loftier than that reached by Spinoza, 
in practical relations, in the discussion of definite points of 
theology, he descended at least to his level. Strauss says, in 
effect, that Schleiermacher reduced both Spinozism and 
Christianity to so fine a powder for his mixture, that it 
needs a sharp eye to distinguish in it the component parts. 
I confess that the influence of Spinoza seems to me to be 
less disguised, though no less marked, than this statement 
would make it. There is hardly an element of Schleier- 
macher' s theology that might not be an outgrowth of the 
philosophy of Spinoza, while the influence of the master is 
distinctly perceptible in special points, as in the discussion 
of the ideas of knowledge, of determining choice, and of final 
causation as applied to God. 

We may ask, then : What sort of Christian theology could 
be constructed upon a basis like that furnished by the phi- 
losophy of Spinoza ? What space would there be for the 
complications of doctrine, for discussing the Divine plan, 
schemes of salvation, and other like* matters that fill out tlje 
creeds ? What place would there be even for dogmatizing 
in regard to the Divine attributes ? God is simply the 
absolute Being : with Schleiermacher, he was something 
more abstract than even this. Certainly, one's creed must 
step into the background. Something else must take its 
place. Religion cannot, then, be a thing of the intellect. It 
cannot be action ; for what definite course of activity can be 
prescribed by this Divinity, who is too abstract even to be 
thought ? The seat of religion must, then, be in the feeling. 
But what must be the nature of this feeling which is the basis 
and sum of religion ? It cannot be that of adoration, for adora- 
tion implies adorable attributes. Spinoza, indeed, would have 
some relation of love between God and man, however diffi- 
cult this may be to comprehend, if we take his teaching in 
the barest Hteralness. With Schleiermacher, this would be 

5 



34 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



even more difficult. But if we take even the coarser and 
more concrete substance of Spinoza, and try for ourselves 
what form of feeling we could naturally and obviously have 
in regard to the one substance in which all things consist by 
a mathematical necessity, I think we shall find that but one 
such feeling is possible ; namely, the feeling of absolute 
dependence. 

Thus we see that the position of Schleiermacher, that 
religion is simply the sense of absolute dependence, is one 
that was the logical result of his philosophical position. It is 
easy to see the effect of such teaching upon the dogmas of 
theology. So far as they relate to the attributes of God and 
his relations to man, they lose their objective validity. God 
is simply the infinite, in the most absolute use of this term. 
Whatever else we may say of him is simply a form of 
expressing our own subjective states, or describing events in 
our human history. Thus the holiness of God is his causality 
in establishing the conscience within us : his justice ex- 
presses the fact of the connection of evil with sin. The 
mercy of God is a phrase, we are told, chiefly fitted for poeti- 
cal and homiletical use. Of course there is in strictness no 
place left for miracle, at least in the ordinary sense of the 
term. Schleiermacher contents himself with simply affirm- 
ing that the miraculous events described in the New Testa- 
ment stand in no necessary relation to our religious con- 
sciousness. 

To the system of Schleiermacher there were two foci. 
The one, theoretical, which I have described ; the other, 
historical, — namely, the doctrine of the person of Jesus. Of 
course the latter is wholly dependent for its significance 
upon the former. What characterized Jesus was perfect sin- 
lessness ; and, because sin is the dulling of the sense of 
absolute dependence, what distinguished Jesus was that in 
him this sense of dependence was absolute and perpetual. 
The work of Jesus is the bringing men into participation 
with this sense. The ecclesiastical terms still in part remain, 
but the strict ecclesiastical meaning is lost. We have senti- 
ment instead of dogma, subjective processes instead of ex- 
ternal machinery. 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. 



35 



I have spoken of the system of Schleiermacher as being 
directly related to that of Spinoza. We cannot fail to see in 
it also the influence of other philosophers, especially that of 
Kant, with whom, however, Schleiermacher had far less in 
common. I would gladly, had I space, dwell at some length 
on the influence of Kant in the direction of liberalism in 
religion. Especially would I speak of the Rationalistic school 
which sprung from him. All that I can here say is that the 
critical and psychological nature of his philosophy prepared 
the way for, if it did not render necessary, a theology that 
should rest, like that of Schleiermacher, on a psychological 
rather than on a dogmatic basis. 

The influence of Schleiermacher, and through him that 
of Spinoza, and less directly that of Kant, has been one of 
the most fundamental elements in the later German theology. 
Strauss wittily compares a part of the later German theology 
to sausage-meat, — the comparison, he tells us, is not more 
ignoble than the thing, — in which the orthodox tradition 
furnishes the solid portion, Schleiermacher the fat, and Hegel 
the spice. Schenkel, himself a most marked exception to 
the statement, tells us, more seriously, that since the pio- 
neer work of Schleiermacher all presentations of dogmatic 
theology have been more or less dependent upon his concep- 
tion of religion. This controls the entire new theology, so 
far as it rises above rationalism. Even those theologians 
who seek to convince themselves and others that it is abso- 
lutely necessary to go back to the faith of the Fathers cannot 
wholly escape from the mighty impulse that went forth from 
him. The overpowering might of his spirit works in them, 
even if unconsciously. 

It is interesting, indeed, and somewhat singular to observe 
the variety of systems that base themselves upon the doc- 
trine of Schleiermacher, — the various forms, more or less 
orthodox, into which this sense of absolute dependence may 
be cast. 

The general tendency of the influence of Schleiermacher 
must, however, be in the direction of liberalism ; for, when 
once this sense of dependence has been made the ground and 



36 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



the test of dogma, whatever is artificially attached to it will 
have no root, and will be apt to wither. Terms that are sug- 
gested by custom, and have only the possibility of their use 
to sustain them, will tend to pass into disuse, when the force 
which caused the custom shall have spent itself. 

Thus we have a very large portion of the modern German 
theology, somewhat conservative in tone, but wholly liberal 
in all its interpretations of doctrine. Of this, the system of 
Schweizer may serve as a good example, his sense of his- 
toric continuity and his love for it not standing in the way of 
the freest treatment of his material ; while the system of Bied- 
ermann, to which I shall refer again in another connection, in 
its freer handling of traditional form and historical succes- 
sion, may illustrate what appears to me to be the ultimate 
tendency of the general movement. 

We need not trust merely to foreign examples of the influ- 
ence of such teaching as we have considered. We can illus- 
trate it by purely subjective experiment. The philosophy of 
Spencer, though it is, compared with that which has been 
occupying our thought, very crude, is yet as well fitted to 
suggest the sense of absolute dependence as that of Spinoza. 
The God of. Schleiermacher is even more unknowable than 
the absolute of Herbert Spencer ; for this, Spencer tells us, is 
a power, while the God of Schleiermacher is an abstraction 
higher than power. It would be as possible to construct 
upon the system of Herbert Spencer a system of theology 
that should bear a certain external resemblance to the eccle- 
siastical theology, as to construct such a one upon the 
system of Schleiermacher. It is easy to see, however, that 
such a system would be to a large extent artificial, that much 
of it would in time be swept away, that only the simplest 
expression of religious belief could maintain itself upon such 
a foundation. An elaborate theology requires something at 
least in some degree knowable. The structure that Mar sell 
sought to build above the unknowable of Sir William Hamil- 
ton vanished amid the clouds, and a somewhat similar fate 
must attend similar attempts, however different their method. 

The phrase that I quoted from Strauss shows what has 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. ifl 

been the other philosophical element prominent in modern 
German theology, or, in other words, in modern liberalism. 
If the theology of feeling, vague and yielding as it is, may be 
compared to the unorganized fat, the sharp dialectic and the 
audacious utterances of Hegel may well be compared to the 
spice of the later theology ; and the epigram of Strauss may 
show how widely the influence of this philosophy has made 
itself felt. 

The first utterance of his system by Hegel was hailed with 
rapture by a large portion of the orthodox world. Here at 
last was the orthodox theology met by a philosophical 
system to which it could easily accommodate itself. The 
threefold process of Hegel furnished easy suggestion of the 
doctrines of the Trinity, of the atonement, and the other 
portions of the theologic scheme. You will nowhere find a 
picture of Christianity more beautiful than that given by 
Hegel in his Philosophy of Religion, in statements that can 
be accepted at once by the orthodox, if only he be not too 
orthodox, and by the liberal, if he be really liberal. 

A very superficial acquaintance with history of modern 
philosophy and theology is sufficient to show how suddenly 
this joy w^as to be turned into mourning. The welcomed 
ally proved to be the most deadly foe that the old theology 
has been forced to grapple with. If it be said that this 
hostility grew not out of the Hegelian philosophy, properly 
so called, but out of a misconception of this, the general fact 
remains the same. This misconception, or transformation, 
grew out of the system itself. The original Hegelianism, if 
it were not identical with this destructive form of thought, 
was yet the source of it. This was introduced with it into 
the citadel of faith. 1 It matters little to the farmer, who 
mercifully takes the freezing and starving she-wolf to his fire- 
side, whether the subsequent ravage be committed by her or 
by her brood. Not the moral, but solely the historical, con- 
nection at present concerns us. While the disastrous results 
that have come upon the old theology from the side of 
Hegelianism are familiar, perhaps the method by which 
these results were accomplished is less familiar. Beside 



38 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



the historical importance of the question and its importance 
for our present theme, the process to which it refers might 
well excite our interest. This transformation of the system 
of Hegel from a friend to a most dreaded foe is as wonderful 
in its way as the transformation of the philosophy of Spinoza, 
at first regarded as a deadly enemy to Christianity ; after- 
wards becoming, as we have seen, the foundation of a large 
part of modern Christian thought. I proceed, then, to point 
out some of the elements in the philosophy of Hegel which 
fit it for this twofold relation to Christianity. 

The first of these elements that I would name is the part 
which Vorstellungen play in this system. I have used the 
word in its German form, because it is difficult to decide 
what English word to place as its equivalent, or rather 
because it has no English equivalent. The word " Concep- 
tion," in some of its looser uses, might answer; but the word 
would be confusing, because it would not determine which of 
its varying uses were meant, and its strict use would mislead. 
The word "Representation " is a nearer translation ; the diffi- 
culty being, however, that in this connection it would furnish, 
without explanation, absolutely no meaning to one unfamiliar 
with the original. Vorstellungen are our methods of repre- 
senting truths to ourselves. They hover midway between 
abstract thought and concrete imagination. Perhaps the 
word " Symbol," in one of its common uses, may illustrate 
the meaning of the word we are considering. 

We sometimes say of statements of belief that they are 
not absolutely true; yet we can use them as symbols of truth, 
inadequate, indeed, but yet practically sufficient. It may 
be seen at a glance that a view of religious expressions and 
beliefs represented by this use of the word Ci symbol," may 
work very naturally in either of two directions, according to 
the mood or purpose of him who uses it. It may take the 
form of Catholicity, leading one to accept widely different 
statements of belief in general, or any one form of belief in 
particular, as symbolically true; or it may lead one to reject 
the same statements as only symbolically true, and thus as 
actually false. This already may help to explain the relation, 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. 



39 



at first friendly, then hostile, of the Hegelian philosophy to 
the older theology. This would be clearer, if we consider 
more definitely the nature of these representations, if I may 
use the term, and their relation to the system of philosophy 
we are considering. 

In the first place, the philosophy brings to light the real 
truth contained in these representations, and thus appar- 
ently justifies them. The statements, even to the orthodox 
holder of them, come to have a meaning that they have not 
had before. He had taken them as they were given to him, 
and because they were given to him. They had perhaps 
been little more to him than shells or husks. But now 
suddenly he has found a kernel of meat in the shell. He 
sees for himself the meaning and the sacred truth that had 
been hidden in these traditional forms. Before, he had 
believed because he was told that the statements were true. 
Now, he believes because his reason tells him they are true. 
The fatal step is made, fatal to the permanent hold of these 
statements upon his mind, when he is content to let his faith 
rest upon the authority of the reasoning. For the next step 
is that these statements are seen to be only symbols. One 
of the first disturbing forces that this consciousness sets free 
is the knowledge that, being only symbols, they are not 
necessarily the only possible ones. Then, too, perhaps he 
may find that no symbols are necessary. One who has 
received certain forms of belief as sacred, and is troubled 
when these are attacked, finds a certain satisfaction in any 
reasoning that permits him honestly to use the old words. 
But one to whom they have never been thus sacred is less 
grateful for such a possibility. He can use the old creed, 
but he has no special desire to do this. If he is to have a 
creed, it must be one that naturally and necessarily grows 
out of his own fundamental conviction. Thus, as soon as 
any form of faith is shown to be merely a symbol, — that is, a 
form under which the mind can conveniently represent to 
itself some deeper and absolute truth, — so soon does this form 
of faith begin to lose its hold upon the hearts of men. 

But, besides this negative effect upon a belief produced 



4 o 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



by the changing of what had been regarded as statements 
objectively true into mere subjective representations of the 
truth, there is a positive element involved. These forms of 
statement are found to be logically inconsistent with one 
another, and, still worse, inconsistent with themselves. " You 
may use them," cries Philosophy; and, in consideration of 
our human weaknesses, she adds : " Perhaps, on the whole, 
you had better use them. They are not true, indeed. More- 
over, you cannot affirm one without implicitly denying the 
rest ; and, when you look closely at any one, you see that it 
dissolves into contradictions, and means nothing. But still 
they may be in some way comforting to you, and so on the 
whole you had better use them." Beliefs that are held on 
such conditions as these you may be very sure will not be 
held very firmly or very long. 

This leads us to notice a second great element in the rela- 
tion of the Hegelian philosophy to liberalism in religion. I 
mean the logical method of the philosophy, that terrible 
Hegelian dialectic. This is, perhaps, especially the element 
of spice to which Strauss refers as contributed by this phi- 
losophy to modern theology. It begins in the mildest and 
most tolerant manner possible. It accepts everything. It 
encourages you to state your thought, and it accepts it. It 
encourages you to defend it, to develop it. It helps you in 
the work. When you can go no farther, it comes to your 
aid. You think you have found an ally, and rejoice in the 
gain. But all this is only a terrible irony. As your thought 
is thus developed, it changes before your eyes. It dissolves 
into contradictory elements and disappears, or it becomes 
transformed into something else. You have nothing to say. 
It is your own thought and your own method carried out to 
their logical results. And then you are shown the inner 
kernel of it all, that which remains as the result of the 
process, or the higher truth of which your partial statement 
was a fragment. Perhaps you are not quite ready for this, or 
do not care for it. Perhaps you accept the new results 
gladly. In either case, the old creed has lost its strength. 

In this school Strauss was trained. His Christliche Glau- 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. 



41 



benslehre, or Doctrine of Christian Faith, is perhaps the most 
damaging blow that the old theology, if not all theology, in 
the strict use of the term, has as yet received. While his 
Life of J^es us has produced a more popular effect, I think 
that this has affected even more powerfully the theological 
world. The later works on theology seem to be endeavoring 
to recover their science from the effects of this onslaught. 
They seek forms of statement which have not felt his 
destructive touch, sometimes for the reason, perhaps, that 
they were not in existence at the moment of his attack ; or 
they accept to a large extent his results, and seek to make 
the best of them. But Strauss did not so much attack the 
dogmas of theology as, by the method to which I have 
referred, let them follow out their own premises to their 
own results. 

But, in the third place, the logical method of which I 
spoke is, after all, only one form of the mighty process which 
the Hegelian philosophy represents as going on in the 
universe, we might even say as constituting the universe. 
The universe, according to this system, is only the Hegelian 
dialectic embodied in measureless proportions. Especially 
is this true in the world of human life. The world in all its 
periods, and in a special manner our human history, throbs 
with the pulses of this infinite process. Personalities, even 
the mightiest, lose their importance in the presence of this 
mighty movement. They mark one of the stages it has 
reached, it embodies itself momentarily in them, it uses 
them, and leaves them behind it, as it seeks new embodi- 
ments and new instruments. Forms of life, forms of belief, 
thus have all their truth and their importance ; but it is a 
truth that proves their partial falseness, an importance that 
remands them to a position of comparative insignificance. 
No result is final, yet none is wholly lost. Each is taken up 
into a higher and more perfect result that follows it. Its 
destruction and its preservation are parts of the same act, 
and may' be expressed in the same word. We thus see how, 
from another point of view, Hegelianism may work in the 
direction of liberality. Dogmatism assumes perfect results 

6 



42 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



to have been accomplished once for all. The Bible is such a 
perfect result. It came in faultless perfection from the hand 
of God. It is in some absolute sense the word of God, God's 
Book. It has thus absolute authority for all after times and 
peoples. But such a hard, unyielding, and foreign perfect- 
ness cannot be left to stand amid the play of the infinite proc- 
ess of which I have spoken. It must become transparent and 
fluent. It also must thrill with the pulse-beats of the life of 
the world. This view tends very naturally to criticism like 
that of Baur. To him the New Testament writings represent 
opposing elements. These elements embody themselves in 
one and another of the great actors in this drama of fate, and • 
dictate all their words. If Paul hopes to preach the gospel 
at Rome, it is from no human love and longing ; it is not 
from the central power of Christian love. He speaks as an 
embodiment of one element in the process that was working 
itself out through him and the other personages that figure 
in this great moment of the history of the world. Peter, the 
logical antithesis of Paul, had preached at Rome his concep- 
tion of Christian truth, and now Paul must be there to offset 
this statement by his own. It was positive and negative 
eternally at war, yet eternally attracting one another. 
» We thus begin to comprehend the most important and 
fundamental of the influences by which the philosophy of 
Hegel has worked in the direction of liberalism. It is found 
in the fact that by this philosophy, according to the method 
in which it has been generally interpreted, the idea of the 
supernatural, in the sense at least in which religious dogma- 
tism has used this word, was rendered wholly impossible. 
This relation of his system to religious thought was recog- 
nized by Hegel himself, when he referred to the idea of a 
God existing over against the world as an example of the 
Vorstelhmg, or symbolic representation. This does not 
involve necessarily the extreme results reached by one large, 
if not the ruling, class of his followers, but it would seem to 
be wholly in antagonism with any interference in the course 
of the world by any supernatural power ; and it is in the 
idea of such interferences that religious dogmatism has most 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. 



43 



loved to intrench itself. We thus see that the tendency of 
the Hegelian philosophy is in the direction of an absolute 
naturalism. Nothing else than this, under some form or 
other, is indeed compatible with that infinite process, working 
through countless minor processes, which is fundamental 
to the system, and which is enthroned, by so many of 
its votaries, as God. This does not imply materialism. It 
is in fact absolutely opposed to materialism ; yet, the human 
mind being constituted as it is, — seizing apparent results 
rather than nicely distinguishing between delicate methods, 
— it might easily, if not logically, lead to a quasi materialism. 

It does not imply that God becomes self-conscious only in 
man, though it might easily suggest this belief. It does not 
necessarily imply that certain events, regarded as miracu- 
lous, did not occur, though this inference lies very near to it. 
It affirms only that the great movement of the process of the 
history of the world was never, and can never be, intferered 
with. The great play of forces, immaterial indeed, in a 
certain sense spiritual, goes its own way eternally. The 
world is objective thought, and thus akin to the life of 
thought within ; but it moves by the laws of an iron logic of 
which Nature is the embodiment, a logic that presses toward 
its results with a pitiless and unyielding persistency. It is 
this element of the philosophy that we are considering which 
has worked under and through those which we have already 
considered. It was this that gave the impulse to distinguish 
between the concrete representation and the abstract 
thought. It was the impulse to let these concealed logical 
forces find free and open play — or, more strictly, perhaps it 
was the pressure of these forces to find free and open play — 
that led to the reduction of these representations into their 
inherent contradictions. It was the reverence for these 
logical forces which rule the world that led to the magnifying 
of them, until the personalities in which they had embodied 
themselves sank into comparative insignificance. It was 
this, finally, that led to the absolute reverence for the nat- 
ural as contrasted with the supernatural, and to the exclu- 
sion from the possibility of thought of any interruption to 
the sweep of the great forces embodied in the universe. 



44 



Institute essays. 



In the realm of theological controversy, Strauss naturally 
presents himself as the most prominent representative of 
the naturalistic tendencies resulting from the philosophy of 
Hegel. Out of this sprung his Life of jfesus. The mythical 
origin to which he ascribes all occurrences which may be con- 
sidered miraculous, and even his critical treatment of the 
stories of the so-called miraculous, would have little weight, 
were it not for the assumption that the time has come when 
such stories can no longer be believed. 

We have thus studied, so far as circumstances permitted, 
chiefly, two illustrations of our general theme. We have 
considered the relation of the system of Spinoza practically 
taking form in the theology of Schleiermacher, and of the 
philosophy of Hegel in the direction of modern liberalism. 
The system of Schleiermacher and that of Hegel stood 
apparently in absolute contrast over against one another. It 
was one of those moments of dramatic interest which history 
seems as fond of producing as the dramatic art itself, when 
Schleiermacher and Hegel stood over against one another in 
Berlin, the one proclaiming a theology based upon feeling, 
the other, with equal earnestness and in sharp contrast, 
insisting upon a theology of thought. For the moment 
there seemed no possibility of reconciliation. But the the- 
ology of feeling and the theology of thought show themselves 
at last, like the difference between Paul and James, like 
so many other contrasts that have suggested bitter strife, 
to be a difference of emphasis rather than one of funda- 
mental fact. Feeling cannot furnish a theology without 
thought, and thought would be nothing without the crude 
feeling which furnish us its material. These two opposite 
tendencies find at least their partial reconciliation in the 
theology of Biedermann. Trained in the school of Hegel, 
and also accepting the starting-point of the theological 
school of Schleiermacher, he finds no difficulty in blending 
the most important contributions of each into a common 
result. He is a strong writer and thinker. He writes like a 
philosopher rather than a theologian. His results may seem 
somewhat pale and cold to the warm religious heart. 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. 



45 



Schenkel characterizes his position very well, when he tells 
us that, from the powder to which Strauss had ground the 
forms of faith, Biedermann has distilled an essence. I con- 
fess that to myself this outcome is far from satisfying. Yet 
I confess also that, after wandering among the subjectivities 
of the school of Schleiermacher, the attempt of Biedermann 
to find some statement of theologic thought that shall be 
objectively true, is thoroughly refreshing. It is like emerg- 
ing from a cavern to the external world. It may be a very 
bare and barren landscape that the eye rests upon, but it is a 
landscape none the less. And I cannot but believe that at 
this point may be the beginning of a new era in the history 
of theology. 

We have now to ask, What general principles in regard to 
the relation of philosophy to theology may be gathered from 
the facts which we have studied ? The first of these princi- 
ples which suggests itself to me is found in the fact that 
philosophy perhaps most naturally attacks the old dogma., 
not by directly setting itself in opposition to it, but by taking 
away the logical necessity from which it had sprung. Men 
rejoice to find that they can still utter something very like 
the old expressions, with something not wholly different from 
the old meaning. That dogma they think has passed a crisis 
in the history of thought, and it still stands unmoved. They 
do not know that it has been severed from its root. A creed 
that one simply can utter is not a creed that lives. A creed, 
to have permanence, needs behind it an absolute necessity of 
utterance, like the " Here I stand : I cannot do otherwise. 
God help me. Amen " of Luther. When this necessity is 
removed, the ultimate doom of the creed is sealed. By such 
insidious processes, by such irony of toleration, have the old 
dogmas been to a great degree destroyed. Not till a later 
stage has come the fierce onslaught which is the most stern 
method of applying the principles of the same philosophical 
system. 

A more important suggestion which appears to me to 
arise from the facts that have passed before us, as well as 
from others to which I have not had space to refer, is that 



4 6 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



it is philosophy that has been the great instrument in the 
growth of the liberal thought of modern times. This, how- 
ever commonplace it may seem at the first utterance of it, 
is a statement directly opposed to one of the fundamental 
assumptions of the popular thought of to-day. This assumes 
that the progress of liberalism is due to science alone. The 
popular thought represents Theology as holding her positions 
firmly, until she is crowded from them step by step by the 
pressure of a constantly advancing and pitiless science. I 
am inclined to think that many professed representatives of 
science would be a little surprised to find how small a part 
physical science has played in the history of theology. It 
has affected strongly the popular mind, and its influence 
has been in the direction of naturalism ; but. the great move- 
ment of theology — the theology of the theologians — has 
been accomplished with little aid from it. 

It is philosophy that has given to modern theology the 
naturalistic direction which it is now to so large an extent 
taking. It was Spinoza who laid the foundations of natural- 
ism broad and deep. It was Kant who corrected a certain 
extravagance of speculation, and by directing attention to 
psychological analysis prepared the way for new achieve- 
ments in philosophic thought. It was Hegel who contrib- 
uted the most to make strong the sense of the invariable 
processes which control and manifest themselves in the 
changes in the world and in history ; and it was the inter- 
pretation that the most numerous portion of his followers 
gave to his system that especially stimulated the naturalistic 
tendency which marks the habit of thought of Germany. 
Science is a product, not the cause of the tendency that we 
are considering. * 

It is important that this point should be fully understood. 
Many, considering that it is physical science which has given 
the great impulse to the present tendencies of^ theologic 
thought, look upon it as being in some way the arbiter in 
regard to all questions relating to spiritual things. If a man 
be distinguished as a scientist, if he be familiar with the laws 
that control the relations of matter, it is taken for granted 



\ 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERALISM. 47 

that he has some special authority in regard to spiritual 
matters, and his utterances on these themes are listened to 
as oracles. One might as well interrogate the sailor on the 
lookout at the bows as to the course which the ship is to 
follow. If you wish to know this, ask the helmsman ; or 
rather ask the captain, who, aloof and apparently uncon- 
cerned, controls the whole. Philosophy, however much 
decried at present by those who are most controlled, how- 
ever indirectly, by her influence, will be in the future, as she 
has been in the past, the great ruler of the thought of the 
world. 

In this essay I have spoken, as I promised, chiefly as an 
historian. It has been necessary to touch upon many grave 
questions. Chief among these are those which arise in 
regard to the natural and the supernatural, the meaning of 
the terms and their relation to one another. These ques- 
tions are too grave to be treated as adjuncts to another 
theme. I have had simply to recognize existing facts in the 
history of thought, and to seek their cause. Especially do I 
regret that the negative character of the theme leaves no 
place to do justice to the very important positive results of 
the work of Schleiermacher. 

One point, however, the theme forces upon our considera- 
tion. This is the general relation of religion to philosophy. 
Religion must be recognized as one of the essential and 
fundamental facts of life. It is a fact that does not ask 
either of philosophy or science leave to be. It is a fact to 
be recognized both by philosophy and science. For the rea- 
son already referred to, — namely, the abstract nature of phi- 
losophy, — no system of philosophy can be expected to do ab- 
solute justice to religion. Religion may well accept and even 
seek whatever explanation or help philosophy can offer. But 
so soon as it attempts to rest its claim to acceptance upon any 
system of philosophy, so soon does it lose its true strength. 
So far as it attempts to cut itself down to meet the standard 
of any philosophical system, so far does it sacrifice some- 
thing of its fulness. Even Schleiermacher, basing, as he 
claimed to do, his theology upon religious feeling, yet, I 



48 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



cannot but believe, left out of the account much that is 
essential to the completeness of religion, owing to the 
requirements of the philosophical system which he had 
adopted. Religion represents the fulness of the nature, each 
system of philosophy represents only a part of the nature. 

" Our little systems have their day, 

They have their day and cease to be," 

but religion is an eternal factor in the life of the soul. The- 
ology should still maintain her old position as queen of phi- 
losophy as well as of science. All the more important is it 
that she should develop from her own principles, and by the 
methods of the science which belongs to her, results which 
shall include nothing foreign to religion, but all that belongs 
to it. If this is done, the partial tendencies of philosophy will 
be corrected. Philosophy will become more and more the 
worthy ally of religion. Already we see philosophy beginning 
to occupy a higher position than she has done of late. Espe- 
cially does the later school of the interpreters of Hegel prom- 
ise rich results in this direction. This is not the place to dis- 
cuss what wing best represents the views of Hegel himself. 
There can be no question, however, that, under the interpre- 
tation referred to, the philosophy shows itself capable of 
producing richer fruits than it has before borne. 

But, whatever this or that system may do for her, Religion, 
leaning upon none, using the best results of all, maintaining 
her central position in the fulness of its beauty and strength, 
will lack neither the interpretations of philosophy nor the 
illustrations of science. 



THE INFLUENCE OF PHILOSOPHY URON 
CHRISTIANITY. 

By FRANCIS E. ABBOT. 

When, by the courtesy of your committee, I was invited 
to prepare a paper for this session of the Ministers' Institute, 
the first of the topics they suggested was — "The Influence 
of Certain Schools of Philosophy upon Christianity." I have 
ventured to modify this title so far as to omit the words — 
" of certain schools," and to treat of the more general ques- 
tion — "The Influence of Philosophy upon Christianity." 
Permit me to say at the outset, as indeed justice to the 
Institute requires me to say, that I understand myself to 
have been invited to discuss this subject, not because I 
represent the views of the Institute or of any of its members, 
but on the contrary because I represent views not yours — 
views which I suppose to be shared by no one in your mem- 
bership. If I do not entirely misconceive the spirit and 
object of the invitation, I appear in this pulpit to lay 
before you a calm, fair, and friendly statement of opinions 
with which you have no intellectual sympathy, but which, 
nevertheless, you are desirous to hear with candor, and to 
discuss with impartiality in the love of truth. Here, most 
assuredly, you and I occupy common ground ; and I con- 
gratulate you on the broad and catholic basis of an organiza- 
tion which not only tolerates, but even invites, the presenta- 
tion of both sides of a question so momentous and funda- 
mental as that on which I am now to address you. Believe 
me, the generous hospitality which you thus extend to con- 
victions profoundly at variance with your own shall not be 
abused. It may well be that these convictions, as convic- 

7 



50 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



tions, may cause some pain, for I doubt not that your unlike 
convictions are as dear to you as mine are to me. But it will 
be in utter unconsciousness, and in deeply regretted contra- 
diction of my purpose, if I drop a single careless expression 
that shall wound the reverence of the tenderest and most 
religious spirit here. If I were capable of entertaining a 
desire to inflict such wounds, surely the fraternal confidence 
implied in your invitation would have disarmed me of it. It 
shall be my aim to prove that your confidence has not been 
misplaced. If I cherish a reciprocal confidence that you will 
listen to me without prejudice and will receive whatever may 
be thoughtfully said with the respect which is due to thought, 
I believe that my own confidence will be equally justified. 
Without further preface I will address myself to my subject. 

DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 

In considering the influence of philosophy upon Christian- 
ity, the first thing to be done is to determine what we mean by 
those two terms. Probably we shall not differ much in our 
conception of the former. Without going into an abstruse 
discussion of the different definitions which have been made 
of philosophy, I think I may here describe it with sufficient 
accuracy as the endeavor of the intellect to rationalize the 
universe — to render the universe as a whole intelligible and 
comprehensible by reason. Philosophy seeks simply to know 
the truth about the universe — to understand the relations of 
part to part and of all the parts to the whole — to discover 
how the One can be Many, and how the Many can be One. 
It seems to me to be the essential object of philosophy to 
introduce unity into our thoughts of the universe, and to 
make an orderly intellectual system corresponding to and 
explaining the complex world of inner and outer reality. 
Hence the history of philosophy has been from the begin- 
ning a history of successive systems. All the great original 
thinkers who have written their names imperishably in the 
records of human thought have been system-makers ; the 
rest have been merely imitators, or eclectics, or critics. But 
this is not all No intellectual system of the universe is 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



51 



entitled to be called philosophic which has been constructed 
by any other instrument than human reason. Philosophy 
constructs only by the laws of thought ; the introduction of 
any foreign element, such as revelation, removes the work at 
once to a different class of constructions. Only the rational- 
izing spirit is recognized as philosophic ; only the reasoned 
systems which the human mind has built find place in the 
history of philosophy as such. It is not a little significant 
that the use of the Greek word Kda/iog- to denote the universe 
dates, according to Plutarch [2 : 886 C] and Diogenes 
Laertius [8 : 48], from Pythagoras, in the earliest and semi- 
mythical age of Greek philosophy, being chosen to express 
the dawning conception of the universe as "order" or 
system, in contradistinction to the rudis indigestaque moles of 
chaos. 

If this notion of philosophy, therefore, is correct, the influ- 
ence of philosophy will be discernible in every attempt to 
introduce rational order or system into human thought. That 
is its essential characteristic and sure indication, for the 
reason that philosophy is simply the application of the intel- 
lect to phenomena, with a view to render them intelligible 
by detecting their causes and mutual relations. In a word, 
philosophy is the endeavor of man to rationalize the universe 
and systemize his own thought concerning it. In this I 
suppose we shall all substantially agree. 

DEFINITION OF CHRISTIANITY. 

With reference to Christianity, however, I do not expect 
agreement, but solicit your candid and indulgent attention to 
the explanation of a distinction which seems to me a very 
important one. Whatever more it may be (and it certainly 
is a great deal more), Christianity is a system of thought 
respecting the universe as a whole. It would be foreign to 
our present purpose to consider Christianity in its other 
aspects ; but, if one of its aspects were not that of a system 
of thought, then this whole discussion would be meaningless. 
The influence of philosophy is to affect thought. If Chris- 
tianity creates no thought, of course philosophy cannot infiu- 



5^ 



Institute essays. 



ence it at all. But if Christianity does create thought, then 
it is a proper question to inquire how far and in what way 
philosophy affects that thought. I beg you, therefore, not to 
imagine me blind or indifferent, to the emotional, moral, 
spiritual, and other important aspects of Christianity, if in 
this discussion I assume that it has also an intellectual 
aspect, and confine myself to a consideration of the influence 
of philosophy upon that. 

With this preliminary statement, I must point out that, at 
the present day, Christianity offers to the world at least two 
very different systems of thought. Not to consume time 
uselessly in discussing minor differences, I cannot avoid the 
recognition of this deep and broad difference. 

CHRISTIANITY PROPER AND NEO-CHRISTIANITY. 

On the one hand, Christianity presents the venerable 
system of thought known as Orthodoxy, which I shall now 
treat as one system, since the differences among the various 
Orthodox communions, Catholic, Protestant, and Greek, are 
entirely overshadowed by their greater doctrinal agreements. 

On the other hand, it presents a much less clearly defined, 
yet still clearly recognizable system of thought known as 
Liberal Christianity. This latter system is comparatively of 
modern origin, at least under that name. I am well aware 
that its adherents regard it as substantially identical with the 
system of thought preached by Jesus himself, and that they 
therefore describe it not infrequently as " Primitive Chris- 
tianity." In this view I am unable to coincide. The system 
of thought which Jesus preached as the intellectual frame- 
work of his gospel centred in the doctrine of his own 
Messianic mission ; if the gospels as we have them contain 
anything that may be fairly considered historical (and this I 
do not doubt), all his ethical and spiritual teachings rested 
on this Messianic doctrine as their broad and underlying 
ground. On this point James Martineau, than whom Liberal 
Christianity has no more distinguished, candid, or able expos- 
itor, writes thus : — 

" The whole difference [between Judaism and Christianity] 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



53 



arose from two causes scarcely appreciable in their earliest 
action : the personal characteristics of Christ's divine hu- 
manity, and the Pauline doctrine of a heavenly and universal 
Redeemer. In these is contained the living essence of the 
new religion ; and their intense power cannot be adequately 
estimated till we fully picture to ourselves the original iden- 
tity, which they have so absolutely destroyed, between the 
Hebrew and the Christian ideas. In its earliest aspect 
Christianity was no new or universal religion : Judaism had 
found the person of its Messiah, but else remained the same. 

. . Whoever can read the New Testament with a fresh eye 
must be struck with the prominence everywhere of the 
Messianic idea. It seems to be the ideal framework of the 
whole — of history, parable, dialogue; of Pauline reason- 
ing ; of Apocalyptic visions. ' Art thou he that should 
come ? ' this question gives the ideal standard by which, on 
all hands, on the part of disciples, relations, enemies, of Saul 
the persecutor and Paul the apostle, — the person and preten- 
sions of Christ are tried. His birth, his acts, his sufferings, 
are so disposed as to * fulfil what was spoken ' by the 
prophets : so that the whole programme of his life would 
seem to have pre-existed in the national imagination." 
[National Review, April, 1863.] 

This is the testimony of one of the most brilliant, schol- 
arly, and universally venerated representatives of Liberal 
Christianity ; and I believe no one can read the New Testa- 
ment through in course, with single reference to the degree 
of prominence therein assigned to the Messianic mission of 
Jesus, without confessing it to be the truth. Yet no Liberal 
Christian, not even Dr. Martineau himself, accepts this 
Messianic mission in the plain, earnest, intense meaning of 
the Testament, with its swarming and vivid descriptions of 
the second coming in the clouds of Heaven, the Day of Judg- 
ment, the Separation of the Sheep and the Goats, and the 
lasting doom of the one class to Heaven and the other to 
Hell. All this is explained away by allegorical interpretation 
as simply parabolic; all its dread reality as Jesus preached it 
is evaporated away as mere poetic imagery; nothing is left 



54 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



of the central, burning, victorious, and blood-attested faith 
which mounted the throne of the Caesars save a few mild 
moral aphorisms and a few sweet pictures of a beautiful 
example. That Liberal Christianity is indeed the revival of 
the Primitive Christianity of Jesus and his apostles, is a 
proposition which I am unable to accept ; for I see that it 
carefully cuts out the core of that early faith, and allegorizes 
away its most vital convictions. For this reason I must 
regard Liberal Christianity, which is far more rational, pure, 
and elevated than the burning Messianic faith which it 
allegorizes and spiritualizes away, as by no means identical 
with, or even similar to, the Primitive Christianity of the 
gospels. It is evidently a new and very modern system of 
thought, created by combining certain beautiful ethical teach- 
ings of Jesus with the enlightened views of modern science 
and philosophy. It is strikingly analogous to the new and 
often allegorical interpretations put upon the teachings of 
Plato by the Neo-Platonists, Philo, Ammonius Saccas, Ploti- 
nus, Proclus, and the rest ; and for this reason it may be best 
described, in contrast with Orthodoxy, or Christianity proper, 
as Neo-Christianity. Orthodoxy is the system of thought 
which grew up gradually and conquered the whole Western 
world in the name of the Catholic Christian Church ; and I see 
no fairness in refusing to that Church the right to decide what 
meaning shall be given to the name Christianity, when the 
history of that name is identical for at least fifteen hundred 
years with its own history. The Protestant churches still 
profess to accept substantially the same system of thought, 
and assign no other doctrinal significance to the Christian 
name. 

For myself, therefore, I simply accept, as the proper doc- 
trinal definition of Christianity, that which has been fixed by 
history : namely, Christian Orthodoxy. I make no new defi- 
nition of it whatever ; I concede, as in my opinion incon- 
testable, the right of the Christian Church as a whole to 
define what Christianity is ; and the Christian Church as a 
whole has decided, by a history of eighteen hundred years, 
that Christianity, in its intellectual aspect, is Orthodoxy. 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



55 



For the sake of distinguishing accurately between the two 
widely differing systems of thought, presented on the one 
hand by the Orthodox Catholic and Protestant churches, 
and on the other hand by the various Liberal Christian 
churches, I shall call the former Christianity and the latter 
Neo-Christianity ; and you will please not misunderstand me 
to mean the one when I name the other. 

ORTHODOXY THE PRODUCT OF CHRISTIAN EVOLUTION. 

Between philosophy and Christianity, therefore, there exists 
a profound difference of method, which it is indispensable to 
note in estimating the influence of one upon the other. Phi- 
losophy judges all things by the test of reason ; it builds all 
its systems by reason alone, criticises them by reason alone, 
destroys them by reason alone, and replaces them with new 
systems by reason alone. But Christianity, while largely 
employing reason in the construction of its system, intro- 
duced also another element which was superior to reason : 
namely, revelation. These two elements, reason and revela- 
tion, entered equally into the gradual creation of the Chris- 
tian system of thought — sometimes consciously, and some- 
times not. It was the element of revelation which caused 
the fixity of this system, when once developed, and gave a 
semblance of truth to the proud, ancient boast of Rome : 
" Semper Eadem!" It was the element of reason, however, 
which caused this system to grow up gradually, and to have 
a history of doctrinal development. If revelation had been 
all, there would have been no historical development of the 
system ; if reason had been all, there would have been no 
fixity or finality about it. Nothing but this rational, human 
element renders Christianity capable of being influenced by 
philosophy ; launched into the world as a completed system 
of revelation alone, like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, it 
could have possessed no flexibility, no development, no his- 
tory. This necessity of development in all things human, 
and therefore in Christianity so far as it is human, is quite 
forgotten by those Neo-Christians who dream of it as given 
to the world by Jesus in full, divine perfection, tottis, teres 



56 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



atque rotundus, incapable of improvement or growth, and 
capable only of deterioration and corruption during these 
eighteen long centuries, until it should be first compre- 
hended by themselves. No mind possessed of the " historic 
sense" can easily persuade itself, even in the absence of all 
investigation, that the great doctrinal system of Orthodoxy, 
which has had enough vitality to weather the storms of 
nearly two millennia, and shows even yet no signs of near 
dissolution, could possibly have been all the time a vast mass 
of mere accretions, corruptions, and degenerations, gathered 
about the nucleus of the perfected gospel, the original revela- 
tion of Jesus. But such a persuasion would seem to be an 
utter impossibility to any one who has ever studied the his- 
tory of Christian doctrine, and intelligently followed the 
course of its constant logical development from age to age, 
beginning with the germ of the Messianic belief and culmi- 
nating in the ripened systems of Thomas Aquinas and John 
Calvin. 

This point is fundamental to the present discussion. Phi- 
losophy can have had no influence whatever upon Chris- 
tianity, if the latter has had no development. What then 
was the nature of the intellectual movement which steadily 
and irresistibly pressed the human mind forward in the 
gradual growth and universal spread of Orthodoxy ? Was it 
a mental disease, more potent to ruin than the originally 
perfected revelation of Jesus was to regenerate ? If so, then 
"carnal reason" has ' richly deserved all the maledictions 
that have ever been heaped upon it, and the revelation of 
Primitive Christianity, being addressed to a race intellect- 
ually too infirm and imbecile to profit by it, was a melancholy 
mistake in the Revealer. 

To such paradoxical conclusions one would seem to be 
reduced, who should urge that the primitive gospel alone was 
Christianity in its purity, and that the growth of Orthodoxy 
was a corruption, not a development, of it. Orthodoxy itself 
is driven to no such conclusions ; for, while it contends on 
the one hand that Jesus revealed all the truth necessary to 
salvation, it equally contends on the other hand that human 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



57 



reason has simply unfolded this revealed truth, and per- 
formed a legitimate work in developing it logically into the 
form of Orthodox theology. Simply as between these^two 
positions — that of the Christian, who recognizes the neces- 
sary development of Christianity as a system of thought, and 
that of the Neo-Christian, who tells me that no such develop- 
ment was needed, but that Christianity was born full-grown 
and continued to be sick almost unto death until this nine- 
teenth century came in, — how can I, as a believer in the law 
of evolution in all human affairs, refrain from giving my suf- 
frage to the opinion of the former ? I think he holds much 
the stronger position, intellectually considered, of the two. 
Perhaps no better statement of it can be quoted than these 
words of Origen : " The Apostles taught only what was nec- 
essary ; many doctrines were not announced by them with 
perfect distinctness ; they left the more precise determina- 
tion and demonstration of many dogmas to the disciples of 
science, who were to build up a scientific system on the 
basis of the given articles of faith." Hagenbach begins his 
Compendium of the History of Doctrines with a strikingly 
similar statement: — 

" The incarnation of our Redeemer, and the introduction 
of Christianity into the world, may be considered as the 
germ of the history of doctrines. The object of all further 
investigations is, in the positive point of view, to develop 
this germ ; in the negative, to guard it against all foreign 
additions and influences. Accordingly, we assume as an 
apologetical axiom, that Jesus Christ brought to light some- 
thing which, in relation to the past, was new and original, 
i.e., a revelation, and, in relation to the future, is theoreti- 
cally perfect, and does not stand in need of any correction or 
improvement. This is the principle on which the history of 
doctrines proceeds, and according to which we judge of all its 
phenomena. . . . There is therefore no room within the history 
of doctrines for a new revelation, which could supersede that 
system of which Jesus is the founder. . . . Jesus is not the 
author of a dogmatic theology but the author and finisher of 
faith, not the founder of a school but emphatically the 

8 



5 3 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



founder of religion and of the church. On this account he 
did not propound dogmas dressed in a scientific garb, but he 
taught the word of God in a simply human and popular 
manner, for the most part in parables and sentences. ... It 
is the common object of evangelical interpretation, of the 
history of the life of Jesus, of apologetics and biblical the- 
ology, to ascertain their peculiar contents, and to reduce 
them to certain fundamental ideas and one uniform prin- 
ciple." 

This, then, is the Christian or Orthodox view of Chris- 
tianity as a system of thought : namely, a germ of infallible, 
divine revelation developed and unfolded by human reason. 
It appears to be certainly more harmonious with the law of 
evolution than the Neo-Christian view that the original infal- 
lible revelation was perfectly developed at the outset, and 
was only corrupted by human reason in the attempt to 
develop it. If no element of infallible revelation is conceded 
at all, then the view taken is neither Christian nor Neo- 
Christian, but really Anti-Christian ; for it denies the very 
essence and existence of the Christian revelation. As a 
matter of fact, the history of Christian doctrines proves that 
the successive changes they underwent in the lapse of time 
were successive advances, not only in logical consistency, 
completeness, and precision, but also in spiritual power. It 
would be tedious to illustrate the fact at length ; it is enough 
to mention the doctrine of the person of Christ, beginning 
with the simple Messianic epithet, u Son of Man," and 
ending with that masterpiece of speculative genius and 
audacity, the " Symbolum Quicunque" — miscalled the Atha- 
nasian Creed. This doctrine, combining the Hebrew notion 
of the Messiah with the Alexandro-Hellenic notion of the 
Logos, became, says Hagenbach, " the proper spring of all 
Christian theology." The New Testament itself, in the 
fourth gospel and the writings of Paul, contains abundant 
evidence of the early germinal union of these two ideas. 
The subsequent history of the doctrine was one of successive 
stages of enlargement, made necessary by the rational de- 
mand for unity, consistency, and logical concatenation. 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



59 



What is true of this central doctrine is true of the whole 
Christian system of thought. The simple and undeveloped 
---.-.or " faith," of the first Christians grew normally and 
healthily into the Christian jvugl-, or scientifically perfected 
body of doctrine of subsequent ages. The whole process 
was one of development, dominated throughout by the desire 
to achieve a rational system of Christian thought ; and the 
conquest of the world by this system was proof of its adapta- 
tion, not only to the practical needs of humanity at that 
period, but also to its rational needs as well. 

RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO CHRISTIANITY. 

Viewed, therefore, as a system of thought in which the 
primitive revelation of Jesus and his apostles was normally 
developed by the steady and long-continued application of 
reason into the great doctrinal whole known as Orthodoxy, 
Christianity has from the beginning been influenced and 
intellectually formed by philosophy. The view in question 
is not mine alone ; it is that of history. No history of phi- 
losophy stands higher than that of Ueberweg, and this is his 
testimony : — 

"The philosophic thought of Christian times has been 
mainly occupied with the theological, cosmological, and 
anthropological postulates of the Biblical doctrine of salva- 
tion, the foundation of which is the consciousness of the law, 
of sin, and of redemption. ... In the Patristic period, philo- 
sophic thought stands in the closest union with theological 
speculation, and co-operates in the development of Christian 
dogma. In the Scholastic period, it passes into the service 
of theology, being employed merely to reduce to scientific 
form a body of dogmatic teaching for the most part already 
at hand, by introducing a logical arrangement and bringing 
to its support philosophical doctrines from ante-Christian 
antiquity. In Modern Philosophy it gradually acquires, with 
reference to Christian theology and ancient philosophy, the 
character of an independent science, as regards both form 
and content. . . . The dogmas of the Church were developed 
in the course of the contest waged by its defenders against 



6o 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Jews and Greeks, against Judaizers, Gnostics, and heretics 
of all sorts. To this development philosophical thought lent 
its aid, being employed before the Council of Nice in elabor- 
ating and perfecting the fundamental doctrines, and subse- 
quently in expanding them into a comprehensive complex of 
dogmas. Whatever was new and peculiar in the doctrine of 
Augustine was the result of the contest in which he was 
engaged, either inwardly or outwardly, against the doctrines 
of the Manicheans, Neo-Platonists, Donatists, and Pelagians. 
But when the belief of the Church had been unfolded into a 
complex of dogmas, and when these dogmas had become 
firmly established, it remained for the School to systematize 
and verify them by the aid of a corresponding reconstruction 
of ancient philosophy : in this lay the mission of Scholasti- 
cism." [i : 261,262.] 

In this view of the subject Uebervveg is supported by 
every other historian of repute. In all candor, friendliness, 
and love of truth, I would put this question for your serious 
consideration : do not the proven facts abundantly justify 
me in the distinction I have drawn between Christianity, as 
identical with Orthodoxy, and Neo-Christianity, as a very 
modern departure both from the undeveloped primitive gospel 
of yesus and from the developed gospel of the Orthodox Chris- 
tian Church f 

Leaving this question to your thoughtful consideration, and 
assuming the justice of my distinction between Christianity 
and Neo-Christianity, I will proceed briefly to trace the past 
influence of philosophy upon Christianity as defined, and to 
indicate its probable influence in the future. 

PRE-CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

Philosophy is older than Christianity by many centuries. 
Without venturing into the vastness and obscurity of oriental 
speculations, we all know that Greek thought endeavored to 
rationalize the universe long before the authentic records of 
its history begins. Three great periods may be distinguished 
in Greek speculation prior to the advent of Christianity. 
The first of these may be characterized as the Objective 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY* 6 1 

Period, in which the philosophic mind occupied itself mainly 
with constructing cosmological theories and attempting* to 
create a scientific conception of the unity of the universe 
before the development of science had rendered such a con- 
ception possible. The Ionic School, the Pythagorean School, 
the Eleatic School, and the later Natural Philosophers (Em- 
pedocles and Anaxagoras, Lucippus and Democritus) belong 
to this period. The second was the Subjective Period, in 
which attention was largely turned from cosmology to anthro- 
pology, — more particularly to ethics and logic as sciences 
based on the laws of thought itself. To this period belong 
the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno the Stoic, 
Epicurus, and the Skeptics. The third was the Transcen- 
dental or Theosophical Period, in which the doctrine of the 
transcendence of the Deity eclipsed the claims of Nature 
and Man to the attention of thinkers, and made Theology 
the absorbing interest of philosophy. The Neo-Pythagoreans 
and the Neo-Platonists, together with the Grseco-Judaic school 
of Alexandria, belong to this third period. Theosophy was a 
strictly legitimate development of Greek thought, which thus 
inevitably came into direct contact with nascent Christianity. 
From this time forth philosophy and Christianity stood in 
close relation to each other, exerting a powerful reciprocal 
influence. What has been the character of this influence ? 

THE FOUR PERIODS. 

Philosophy, as we have seen, is essentially the endeavor of 
the human mind to rationalize the universe : i.e., to explain it 
by reason alone, determining both the facts and their connec- 
tions by the laws of reason alone. But Christianity, as a 
system of thought, is the endeavor of the human mind to 
rationalize, not the universe as reason apprehends it, but 
revelation as God and Jesus Christ have given it. That is 
the essential difference between the two. Philosophy ceases 
to be philosophy as such, and becomes theology, the moment 
it accepts the contents of revelation as a fixed point of 
departure in its speculations ; yet this is precisely what 
Christianity demands that it shall do. At the very outset, 



62 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Christianity made this demand, and has never ceased to 
make it. How has philosophy met this demand? That is 
essentially the question to be answered, and the answer is 
shortly this : — 

1. Philosophy at first resisted the demand of Christianity. 

2. It submitted and obeyed. 

3. It rebelled and won its freedom. 

4. It now demands in turn that Christianity shall submit 
revelation to reason and abide by the result. Christianity 
to-day resists ; I believe it will yet submit and obey. In 
Neo-Christianity it has already done so. 

Now here are four great periods to be distinguished with 
reference to the relation which philosophy has borne to 
Christianity, the period of Resistance, the period of Subjec- 
tion, the period of Revolt, and the period of Conquest. The 
first three are in the past ; the fourth is in the present and 
the future. I will touch upon the history of these four 
periods as briefly as possible. 

THE PERIOD OF RESISTANCE. 

Neo-Platonism had its origin in the " Platonic principle of 
transcendence " [Ueb. 1 : 234], which was renewed and 
further developed by Eudorus and Arius Didymus in the 
time of Augustus as an offset to Stoic Pantheism and Epicu- 
rean Naturalism, and which was developed still further by 
the Neo-Platonists themselves. Plato's attempt to translate 
Oriental mysticism into scientific speculation ended, accord- 
ing to Robert Zimmermann, in the re-translation by Neo- 
Platonism of thought into images. The Oriental element 
thus introduced into Greek philosophy by Plato himself was 
the seed of the theosophic ecstasy, rhapsody, and enthusiasm 
that came later. A fusion was effected between Judaism 
and Hellenism in the Jewish-Alexandrian school. The vague 
speculations of Aristobulus concerning the Divine dbvapt?, 
and of the Pseudo-Solomon concerning the Divine oofra, cul- 
minated in Philo, who introduced the distinction between 
God and his world-building forces, which in their totality 
constituted the Divine Uyo~. Here the approximation of 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



63 



Philo to Christianity stopped. Holding to the doctrine of 
the essential impurity of matter, it was logically impossible 
to accept the doctrine of the incarnation of the Logos, or to 
identify the Logos with the expected Messiah. " The incar- 
nation of the Logos in Christ," says Ueberweg, "forms the 
fundamental speculative . . . doctrine by which Christianity 
separated from Alexandrian theosophy." At this point, 
therefore, philosophy made a stubborn resistance to Chris- 
tianity. 

The founder of Neo-Platonism proper was Ammonius 
Saccas, who lived about 175 to 250 A.D. His most distin- 
guished disciple was Plotinus, who carried the doctrine of 
the Divine transcendence so far as to teach that the Supreme 
Essence, the Good per se, transcended the category of Being ; 
and, affirming that it was exalted above the rational nature, 
he even denied to it the faculty of thought. Here again phi- 
losophy resisted Christianity. 

The most eminent of the later Neo-Platonists was Proclus, 
born about 411 A.D. In opposition to the Christian Trinity, 
he taught the doctrine of a mystical Triad of the intelligible, 
intelligible-intellectual, and intellectual essences. But his 
opposition, no less than that of Porphyry and the other Neo- 
Platonists, proved abortive. In the year A.D. 529, the 
Emperor Justinian closed the School at Athens, and inter- 
dicted the giving of instruction in philosophy altogether. 

THE PERIOD OF SUBJECTION. 

None the less, however, while Pagan philosophy fought a 
losing battle against Christianity, was Christianity itself 
unable to dispense with philosophy in the construction of its 
own dogmatic edifice. In vain did the fiery Tertullian 
denounce philosophy as the mother of heresies, and exclaim 
with vehemence — " Credo quia absiirdum est : " even he was 
obliged to maintain that " the divine mysteries cannot, in the 
last analysis, be opposed to reason." 

There was no help for it. The systemizing reason asserted 
its rights as far as it could, and, being forced to accept the 
data of revelation as its unquestionable first principles, pro- 



6 4 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



ceeded to erect on this foundation a new system of thought, 
scientific and philosophic at least in form. 

Says Ueberweg : " In the writings of the Apostolic Fathers 
we see principally the fundamental doctrines, theoretical and 
practical, of Christianity being developed in the struggle 
with Judaism and Paganism." [i : 274.] "The so-called 
Gnostics, in their endeavor to advance from Christian faith 
to Christian knowledge, made the first attempt to construct 
a religious philosophy on the Christian basis. The Gnostic 
speculation was less logical than imaginative, the various 
abstract elements of religious belief being realized in the 
form of personal beings, forming a Christian or rather 
semi-Christian mythology, underneath which lay hidden the 
germs of a correct historical and scientific appreciation of 
Christianity." [1 : 280.] So also says Lipsius : " Gnosti- 
cism was the first comprehensive attempt to construct a 
philosophy of Christianity ; owing," however, to the immense 
reach of the speculative ideas which pressed themselves on 
the attention of the Gnostics, but with which they were wholly 
lacking the scientific ability to cope, this attempt ended only 
in mysticism, theosophy, mythology, in short, in a thoroughly 
unphilosophical system." 

There were men of a philosophical turn of mind among the 
early Christians, however, such as Clement of Alexandria 
and Origen, teachers in the school for catechists in that city, 
who represented a better class of Gnostics and strove to 
reduce the principles of the gospel to philosophic form with- 
out departing from the catholic faith of the Church. They 
found fault with the Gnosis of the heretics for the sake of a 
better one. "Alexandria," says Baur, "the original home of 
Gnosis, is also the birth-place of Christian theology, which, 
in its first form, itself aimed to be nothing else than a Chris- 
tian Gnosis." Although, as Hagenbach points out, the 
germs of a dogmatic theology are contained in the New Tes- 
tament itself, — "the central point of John's theology," he 
says, "is the incarnation of the Logos in Christ ; the funda- 
mental principle of the Pauline doctrine is justification by 
faith," — still there existed no system of Christian doctrine 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



65 



prior to Origen. The teachers at the school of catechists 
were the first to perceive and feel the practical necessity for 
such a system. Clement collected the materials of it, and 
Origen reduced them to something like order in his book 
of which only fragments remain. 
Origen's attempt was the first, but not the last. Gregory 
of Nyssa (331-394 A.D.) developed the Christian doctrine in 
systematic order in his book Myog- to-^™^- by which he ren- 
dered the most important service. But it was by Augustine 
(354-430 A.D.) that the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Patristic 
Period was developed in its most complete and perfect form. 
His works were numerous and elaborate, and have given him 
permanent fame as the great philosophical organizer of the 
Christian religion in the West. In the Eastern church Neo- 
Platonic and other philosophical speculations on Christian 
doctrines were made by Synesius of Cyrene, born A.D. 375 ; 
Nemesius, /Eneas of Gaza, Zacharias Scholasticus, Johannes 
Philoponus, the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, and others ; 
while Johannes Damascenus (about 750 A.D.), in his work 
on "The Source of Knowledge," gave a minute and system- 
atic exposition of Orthodox Dogmatics, which still retains 
great authority in the Greek Church. He, however, unlike 
Augustine, contributed nothing to the development of Chris- 
tian doctrine, which he regarded as completed ; and he is 
therefore entitled to be considered only a careful and orderly 
compiler. 

Philosophy had now substantially completed its task of 
accomplishing the intellectual organization of Christianity. 
It had created Orthodoxy, the completed system of thought 
which reason had logically developed out of the unsystemized 
data of revelation. But the period of its service was not yet 
ended. From the ninth to the fifteenth or sixteenth century, 
under the name of Scholasticism, it continued to be the 
ancilla theologies, a mere handmaid of the Orthodoxy which it 
had itself created. During that long period it had many 
great names to boast of : Johannes Scotus Erigena, Roscelli- 
nus, Anselm of Canterbury, Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, 
Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, William 
9 



66 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



of Occam, — the list is too long for enumeration ; and it had 
great questions to deal with — none greater than the contro- 
versy between Realism and Nominalism, which, as Tenne- 
mann well says, was " never definitely settled." It is des- 
tined to come up again for settlement when the reform in 
philosophic method now going on shall have been at last 
completed. 

" Scholasticism was philosophy in the service of established 
and accepted theological doctrines, or at least, in such subordi- 
nation to them that, where philosophy and theology trod on 
common ground, the latter was received as the absolute 
norm and criterion of truth. More particularly, it was the 
reproduction of ancient philosophy under the control of 
ecclesiastical doctrine, with an accommodation, in cases of 
discrepancy, of the former to the latter." As during the 
Patristic period philosophy had been made to construct the 
great dogmatic edifice of Christianity, so during the Schol- 
astic period it was made to fortify it, defend it against attack, 
and compel even Aristotle himself to do duty as a good 
Catholic. There is no occasion here to rehearse the details 
of this long slavery of the human mind. The Scholastic 
period at last drew to a close, and the Modern Period began 
to dawn. 

THE PERIOD OF REVOLT. 

"Unity, servitude, freedom — these are the three stages," 
says Ueberweg, " through which the philosophy of the Chris- 
tian era has passed, in its relation to ecclesiastical theology." 
Modern philosophy is simply a revolt against an intellectual 
authority always unnatural, and at last become intolerable. 
It is the definite refusal of the human mind to endure that 
element of revelation which Christianity so long forced upon 
it. It is the affirmation of reason's right of eminent domain 
over the whole world of thought — of her right to rationalize 
the universe in accordance with her own laws alone. This 
revolt of philosophy against the claim of Christianity to 
dictate the premises of philosophic thinking is more than a 
revolt ; it is a revolution, and the revolution is already an 
accomplished fact, Philosophy is to-day totally emancipated 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



67 



from its long subjection to Christianity ; it no longer builds 
upon the basis of revelation, but of experience. Its inde- 
pendence is complete, if not unquestioned ; even if some 
philosophers of repute retain the element of revelation to 
some extent in their speculations, they justify it solely on 
the ground that reason sanctions it, and this is to deny the 
essential character of revelation, which is sanctioned by 
authority, not by reason. The spirit of all Christian faith is 
expressed by Augustine, who believed that the Church was 
inspired directly by the Holy Spirit : " I should not believe 
the gospel, unless the authority of the Church Universal con- 
strained me." The spirit of all Christian philosophy is 
expressed in the saying of the Scholastic Abelard : " If we 
suppose Aristotle, the leader of the Peripatetics, to have been 
in fault, what other authority shall we receive in matters of 
this kind ? " Slavish dependence upon authority of some 
kind was the central principle of Christian philosophy ; but 
modern philosophy fails even to understand the word, as 
applied to persons. It recognizes no authority as valid but 
that of experience, of facts, of verified truth, of the Consensus 
of the Competent. 

A revolution so vast could, of course, come about only by 
degrees. There was a period of transition, full of confusion 
and contradiction, before philosophy learned to know its own 
rights to their full extent. It is not my task now to trace 
the stages of this great change, but only its influence upon 
Christianity. 

The Protestant Reformation, in itself considered, was less 
a revolution in theology than in church government ; for the 
great features of the system of thought known as Orthodoxy 
have not been substantially altered by it. Nevertheless, 
Protestantism was the beginning of disintegration in this 
system, and a fruitful cause of it. Piece by piece, the doc- 
tri nal unity of Christianity has been crumbling away under 
its influence, reinforced as this has been by the influence of 
philosophy and of science — which are at bottom one. The 
Latin, Greek, and various Protestant churches, however, 
embracing a vast majority of Christian believers, adhere still, 



68 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



in its main features, to the Orthodox system of thought 
which is justly entitled to be called Christianity. But the 
influence of philosophy, especially in the form of modern 
science, has not only detached immense multitudes from 
these communions, but powerfully affected the belief of mul- 
titudes that remain within them. There is not a single 
Christian doctrine, whether concerning God, Nature, or Man, 
that has escaped this invisible but potent influence. 

In my judgment, the most striking visible effect produced 
by the disintegrating influence of philosophy upon Chris- 
tianity has been the appearance of Neo-Christianity. All the 
Evangelical sects of Protestantism retain the fundamental 
and distinctive characteristics of Christianity; but the 
changes in its system of thought wrought by the Neo-Chris- 
tian movement are so vital and profound, that scarcely a 
vestige of it remains. Were it not for the aid of allegorical 
interpretations, by which utterly new ideas are introduced 
into the ancient symbols of Christian belief, and by which 
their almost total rejection of the Christian belief is effectu- 
ally concealed from the Neo-Christians themselves and from 
others,* the Neo-Christian movement would appear to be what 
it really is: namely, fundamentally and sweepingly Anti- 
Christian. The system of thought which they cherish, 
their philosophical conceptions of the universe, its cause, its 
laws, and its relations to themselves, are substantially as 
broad and enlightened as those which characterize modern 
philosophy and modern science ; and the effectual conceal- 
ment of the true relation they hold to the ancient and long 
developed Christian system is only one more illustration of 
the wondrous witchery of words. Michael Servetus, Lselius 
and Faustus Socinus, Priestley and Belsham, Schleiermacher 
and the Coquerels, Channing and Parker, and the host of 
other honored names which lend lustre to the Neo-Christian 
movement, represent an interpretation of the Christian 
gospel far more radically unlike the thought of Jesus and his 



*The "brilliant opening sermon" of the Institute, by Rev. Mr. Calthrop, was parentheti- 
cally mentioned by the essayist as a strikingly pertinent illustration of this allegorizing tendency. 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



6g 



apostles than the interpretation of Platonism by Philo, 
Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus was unlike the thought of 
Plato. The disintegrating influence of philosophy upon 
Christianity is more strikingly illustrated by the emergence 
of this new interpretation of the Christian gospel than by 
any other phenomenon of the past three centuries. Neo- 
Christianity, with its rational and enlightened views, its pure 
ethics, its earnest humanitarian spirit, its cheerful and genial 
temper, its elevating and ennobling spirituality, is one of the 
best results of the influence which philosophy in the modern 
period has exerted upon the Christian system of thought. It 
only needs emancipation from the deceitful witcheries of a 
name to know itself, and be known by all, for what it is in 
fact — the child of reason rather than of faith, and the heir 
of a great and noble future. 

For fifteen centuries the servant and bondslave of Chris- 
tianity, to-day, after a long and arduous struggle, philosophy 
stands free and independent. What is to be the influence 
which henceforth it must exert on the Christian system of 
thought? What is henceforth to be, the relation of philoso- 
phy to Christianity ? 

THE PERIOD OF CONQUEST. 

I have shown that philosophy is the endeavor of the human 
mind to rationalize the universe by the laws of reason alone, 
and that Christianity, as a definite historical system of 
thought, has already rationalized the universe on a fixed and 
unchangeable basis of revelation. If these conceptions of 
the two are correct, amity between them is impossible. To 
Christianity, philosophy must appear as a blasphemous 
denier of her own corner-stone of revelation. To philosophy, 
Christianity must appear as an inflexible denier of her own 
dearest rights. Peace on such terms is impossible. An 
irrepressible conflict must continue to exist until either one 
or the other is the sole mistress of human thought. Which 
shall it be ? Let us look closer at the issue here made. 

Christianity is the most complete illustration of personal- 
ism, as the basis of a system of thought. It exalts a single 



76 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



human individual as the Divine Ruler of the universe and 
the Savior of every human soul that cleaves to him with 
unquestioning faith. Its supreme law is the law of love — 
love to God in Christ and love to the neighbor for his sake. 
Its supreme authority is the word of God in Christ, as the 
revealed and absolute norm of truth. 

Philosophy is the most complete illustration of impersonal- 
ism, as the basis of a system of thought. Its supreme author- 
ity is reason, and its supreme law is the law of truth. 

The profound and irreconcilable antagonism between the 
two is created by the demand of Christianity that every 
human mind shall accept the revelation of God in the words 
of Christ as absolute truth, without criticism or correction or 
abatement, in the spirit of unquestioning faith. This is a 
demand to which philosophy cannot yield without committing 
suicide. Hence the irrepressible conflict between the two. It 
is the conflict between head and heart, caused (I think most 
unwisely) by the heart's usurpation of the head's natural pre- 
rogative of deciding what is truth. The intellect alone is the 
faculty by which truth is determined ; it cannot abdicate in 
favor of sentiment without deep and damning disloyalty to the 
very nature of things. Whatever can be stated in the form of 
a proposition, with subject and predicate, is and must be a 
question of truth as such, to be affirmed or denied by the intel- 
lect, the sole judge of evidence ; and it is immoral in the last 
degree to affirm or deny it on the warrant of mere feeling. 
Philosophy is compelled to confront Christianity with rejec- 
tion of her supreme demand, not flippantly or wilfully, but 
with solemn consciousness that she must defend the rights of 
thought and the cause of intellectual rectitude against unwar- 
ranted aggression. The heart makes a woful mistake in 
assuming to do the work of the head ; it should follow, not 
lead, and the consequences are most disastrous if it under- 
takes to lead. The function of the head is to think, not to 
feel ; the function of the heart is to feel, not to think. Rev- 
erence for the integrity of human nature and solicitude for 
the highest interests of the human soul command philosophy 
to be steadfast in refusing the unnatural demand of Chris- 



PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. 



7T 



tianity to accept revelation as a substitute for proof. It is a 
demand she cannot grant without deep dishonor to reason 
and deep disaster to the cause of truth. 

No — the cause of philosophy is the cause of the human 
mind itself. In the long run, the heart always adapts itself to 
the conclusions of the head. Consciously or unconsciously, it 
has always done so ; and it always will. The time has now 
arrived to do it with full consciousness. The clinging senti- 
ments of the human soul, once Pagan, adapted themselves 
gradually to the Christian system of thought, as Orthodoxy 
was gradually developed by reason out of the assumed revela- 
tion of the gospel ; and the so-called " Christian conscious- 
ness " was the result of this adaptation. Now the educated 
reason of mankind, or philosophy, gravely asserts its right to 
discard revelation altogether, and to build up a new, scien- 
tific system of thought on the basis of experience ; and the 
clinging sentiments of the human soul will again adapt them- 
selves to the change. The " Christian consciousness " will 
slowly and gradually, but surely and irrevocably, transform 
itself into a rational consciousness ; it is already doing so, 
and the process must go on. Philosophy, long the slave of 
Christianity, and afterwards a power independent of and 
unrelated to it, now begins to claim dominion over it ; and 
the claim will prove to be irresistible. All the uneasy 
attempts of Orthodoxy to adjust itself to the discoveries of 
science are so many confessions of the fact. Orthodoxy is 
melting away like an iceberg in southern seas ; and Neo- 
Christianity is the form it takes just before it disappears 
from sight. Henceforth the empire of philosophy is to grow 
like the Roman Empire, swallowing up province after prov- 
ince of belief until all human thought obeys in all its depart- 
ments the one imperial law of reason. There is no room left 
in the modern world for revelation. But the human soul 
will still remain the same, with all its sweet affections and 
lofty aspirations and poetic, religious sentiments. All these 
will yet adapt themselves, completely and happily, to what- 
ever reason shall show to be the discovered truth of things. 
The universe is still here, in all its mystery and majesty; 



72 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



the human soul is still here, in all its beauty and its tender- 
ness. Reason alone can ever re-establish harmony between 
the two. Christianity in its day created a truly universal or 
catholic unity of human thought on the basis of revelation, 
and named its rationalized system of the universe Orthodoxy. 
Reason is to-day creating a new catholic unity of human 
thought on the basis of science or experience ; and the name 
of this new rationalized system of the universe is Philosophy. 
Nothing that was true, useful, or good in the one will be lost, 
when the other shall have taken its place. Let us fear no 
more the rising sun of reason ! 

Gentlemen, I have spoken with great plainness of speech, 
but, I trust, with no spirit or purpose incongruous with the 
spirit and purpose of your generous invitation. My endeavor 
has been to be faithful both to truth and to you. If I have 
failed in either duty, I crave forgiveness. That Christianity 
is a great deal more than a mere system of thought, — that it 
has ministered, and still ministers, to the moral and spiritual 
wants of countless souls, — that it has done, and is still doing, 
incalculable service to man in many ways, — I have not for- 
gotten and rejoice to admit. But, for all that, it remains a 
system of thought still, and must remain so ; and it con- 
cerned my subject to treat it in no other light. Do me the 
justice, I beg you, to acquit me of insensibility to the ten- 
derer aspects of Christianity, though unable to touch upon 
them here. High and imperative obligations rest upon him 
who would tell the truth in the spirit of love; and obliga- 
tions no less high and imperative rest upon all who would 
listen in the spirit of candor and love of truth. That I have 
been faithful to mine, I hope : that you will be faithful to 
yours, I know. I thank you for this opportunity, after an 
interval of thirteen years since our paths divided for con- 
science' sake at Syracuse, of meeting you once more with 
mutual confidence and respect ; and I cannot but believe 
that, however widely divergent these paths have been with 
regard to intellectual convictions, we are all still working 
side by side for the religion of truth, of righteousness, and 
of love. 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



By Dr. GUSTAV GOTTHEIL, Rabbi, Temple Emanu-el, 
New York. 

I have not been unmindful of the difficulties that surround 
the task I have undertaken. The first arises from the large 
number of questions that have to be brought under discus- 
sion. This I have tried to meet, by limiting myself to the 
simplest statements, remembering the rule of my teachers, 
the Talmudic doctors: "For the wise, a hint suffices." 
Again, my relation to the subject with which I have to deal 
has imposed upon me the strictest watchfulness and a con- 
stant self-control. As a lineal descendant, not according to 
the flesh only, but to the spirit also, of that race with whose 
destinies and mission we shall concern ourselves, my natural 
sympathy might carry me to conclusions not fully warranted 
by the facts on which they are based ; for the Masters have 
warned me that love, not less than hatred, is liable to trans- 
gress the line of justice. And to this danger a Jew is always 
exposed, when he looks back upon the history of his people. 
If their steadfastness excites the admiration, their suffer- 
ings, the pity of every unprejudiced and feeling heart, — 
what must be the effect upon one who is linked to their 
memory by the ties of blood and kinship and the com- 
munity of faith and hope ? I have, however, honestly tried 
to preserve that calmness of judgment on which a success- 
ful search after truth depends. Should I, nevertheless, now 
and then betray the warmth of my feelings, you will not, 
therefore, deny me an impartial hearing. I think you would 
10 



74 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



rather have me come to you such as I am, and perhaps not 
be disinclined to accept these involuntary expressions of 
feelings as proofs that Judaism is, as yet, far from being 
that fossil state which is so often ascribed to it. 

Then I shall have to touch upon ground where contra- 
diction is most distasteful, and liable to assume the nature 
of a personal injury. The religious faith of an honest soul 
is to me something so sacred and so vital to its well-being, 
that I shrink from disturbing the peace of the sanctuary, 
where a heart worships its God after its own needs. But 
here, again, I sustain myself by the recollection that I 
shall speak to men who are resolved to look truth straight 
in the face, and who give practical evidence of their belief 
in the words which the Evangelist puts into the mouth of 
his ideal Master: " And the truth shall make you free." 

I have designated my subject "Monotheism and the 
Jews." I ought rather to have said, "and Judaism" ; for it 
is my purpose to set these two into their proper historic re- 
lation. I have not, however, thought it necessary to enter 
upon a discussion of the origin of monotheism, a question 
that has of late excited much attention. Renan was one of 
the first to set the inquiry on foot.* He traces it to an in- 
stinct of the Semitic race, fostered by natural surroundings ; 
but his theory, which was not received with favor by such 
scholars as Max Miiller, Chvolson, Tide, may now be said 
to have been abandoned. In spite of his apodictic ; On 
iiinvente pas le monotheisme, it has been declared to be the 
child of political necessity in the struggle for the unifica- 
tion of the tribes. Other writers take the mythological 
view, and think of a gradual condensation of the nebulous 
heathen deities into men of flesh and blood. The latest ex- 
ponent of this theory is Julius Popper in his Urspi'ung des 
Monotheismns. f 

I shall simply state what appears to me the historic rela- 
tion between Monotheism and Judaism ; and to that end it 

*In his Histoire gendrale des Langues Semitiques, 1858, p. 3', further elaborated in 
Journal Asiatigue, 1859, pp. 214-282, 417-450. 
t Berlin, 1879. 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 

will be necessary, at the outset, to define the precise mean- 
ing of the latter term. 

There was a time when the favorite description of Judaism 
with Christians was : The blank page between the Old and 
the New Testament. The inventor of this phrase spoke 
more truly than he knew. There was a blank somewhere, 
only not where he supposed it to be : it was not in history, 
but in the minds of those who thus tried to get rid of Ju- 
daism, and save themselves the trouble of examining. But 
a truer method of constructing history has been adopted 
since the days of DeWette,* George, f and especially Vatke,$ 
the weight of the ever-swelling evidence making their de- 
ductions almost irresistible. To these critics, a blank in the 
history of mind is as inadmissible as in that of matter. A 
leap from Malachi to Matthew, over near six centuries, is 
simply an absurdity. The thread that connects the liter- 
ature of the Old with that of the New Testament must be 
sought, if either is to be rightly understood ; and the history 
of the rise of Judaism proper must be entered on "the blank 
page," so as to obtain the hitherto missing link. For there 
was a farther guess at the truth in the " blank-page" theory. 
That phase of Israel's religion which is now marked by the 
name of Judaism § is indeed the creation of the centuries 
intervening between the supposed close of the Old Testa- 
ment canon and the opening of the New. Its fathers were 
Ezekiel, the prophet, and Ezra, the scribe. All that pre- 
ceded it furnished only material for the structure, with the 
exception of the Reformation under Josiah, which may be 
called its preparatory stage. To speak now of a Judaism 
of Abraham, of Moses, of David, involves an anachronism 
as glaring as if we were to speak of Roman Catholicism in 
the days of John the Baptist, or of American republicanism 
of the time of Columbus or William Penn. Of course we 
may use the term as a mere generic name for the religion of 



* Beitrdge ztir Einleitttng in das Alte Testamente. Halle, 1806-7. 

\ Die alter en Jud. Feste. Berlin, 1835. % Die Bibl. Theologie. Berlin, 1835. 

§ Vide Jost, Geschichte des Judenthtims, I. 3, ff. ; Wellhausen, Geschichte Israel' 's, I. p, 

350, 



76 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Israel from the patriarchal age to the present, and may 
justify our application by the undeniable fact that, as the 
oak sleeps in the acorn, Judaism was implied in the first com- 
mand which Abraham received to quit his father's house, 
and migrate into Canaan. But then we obliterate its great 
historic significance as a name for a distinct and most preg- 
nant era in the development of monotheism ; in fact, ignore 
one of the cardinal points on which hinge the reconstruct- 
ing labors of the critical school. 

To be more explicit : I suppose my hearers are sufficiently 
acquainted with the method, and the general results of his- 
torical study of the Bible. Mr. Chadwick's book furnishes 
a lucid cornpte rendu. It is indeed as he says : a complete 
revolution has taken place in the arrangement of the A T arious 
books and of their different contents, so that the first have 
become the last, and the last the first. The first book of 
Moses is no longer Genesis, but Deuteronomy, which is 
supposed to have originally included most of the present 
book of Joshua. It is not denied that in the other books are 
preserved documents older than Deuteronomy. Kuenen 
holds that the Decalogue is of Mosaic origin. Wellhausen, 
one of the latest writers, and most unsparing in his micro- 
scopic; analysis, admits that portions of what is now termed 
the Code of the priest, the compilation of which he places 
considerably later than the return from the exile, embodies 
very ancient forms of sacerdotal ritual, that have floated 
down from pre-exile centuries. But, as regards reputed 
Mosaic authorship, Deuteronomy is the first in the chrono- 
logical order, and, let us add, the first in historic significance. 
For its discovery or composition — which shall we say ? — 
by Hilkiah fanned the zeal of the king to such a flame that 
it almost devoured the idols and their shrines, and made 
room for the government of Jehovah as the sole God of 
Israel ; but the movement was premature, and failed, leav- 
ing the state tottering to its end. The Reformation 
passed away, almost without a trace, except the Book ; an 
invaluable possession, ' from which Judaism really started, 
and that is the reason why I called the time of its appear- 
ance a preparatory stage. 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



77 



Under this mode of treatment, the Bible came from being 
a history of revelation to be a revelation of history. We are 
now construing a story of the ancient Hebrew times that 
lie rather behind than within the Bible. We must learn to 
read between the lines, — a task the more difficult, because 
we are seeing persons and things as in a glass darkly ; 
namely, through the minds of the compilers and chroniclers, 
whose share in the work was very different to what it was 
formerly supposed to have been. The oracles of old were 
understood to answer questions of the hour. The lips of the 
holy prophets were charged with such words of instruction 
as were then anxiously sought for ; their authority was in- 
voked to bend the will of the people to the laws and ordi- 
nances through which the truths of which the leaders had 
become more deeply conscious should be grafted upon the 
heart of every child of the covenant, and become the com- 
mon property of the people. The great reverence, how- 
ever, in which the literary bequests of former ages were 
held, happily kept the correcting and adjusting hands of 
the editors within bounds ; so that, through the maze of 
legend, and in spite of much antedating, we are still able 
to discern clearly two distinct phases of development in 
the religious life of Israel preceding that of Judaism, which 
may be fitly distinguished by the names Hebraism and 
Israelism : the representative of the first is Moses ; of the 
second, Samuel. 

The characteristic feature of Hebraism is tribal indepen- 
dence in politics and religion. The leadership in both apper- 
tains to the Shophet, rather inadequately rendered "Judge" 
in our versions. Only under the pressure of necessity did 
several tribes range themselves under his banner, resum- 
ing their independence at his death. None of the judges 
founded a dynasty. That the original of the Canaanite 
ruler was The Judge is evident from the fact that the same 
title (Suffetes) is found amongst the Phoenicians. In the 
middle books of the Pentateuch, the Tribes form a marked 
feature : here we have elaborate, statements of their military 
contingents, their order of encampment and of marching. 



73 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



In Exodus xxiv., we have a description of the solemnities 
under which the covenant between God and Israel was 
finally ratified ; yet even here twelve pillars, " according to 
the twelve tribes, werebuilded" next to the altar of Jehovah. 
It is a sign of the great antiquity of the two blessings, that 
of Jacob and of Moses, that they are based on the tribal 
division of the people : they evidently lay particular stress 
on the characteristics of each, and may have been protests 
against the growing tendency toward centralization, put 
into the mouths of Jacob as the bodily, and Moses as the 
spiritual, father of the tribes ; something like their political 
testaments, in which the character and the favorite pursuits 
of each tribe were urged as reasons against centralizing 
schemes.* 

The twelve stones, commemorative of the passage over 
the Jordan, the minute description of the boundaries of the 
allotments under Joshua, the whole history of the period of 
the Judges, show that tribal co-ordination was the recognized 
form of government under which the conquerors of Canaan 
lived for several centuries ; and the religion corresponded to 
it. Of a central sanctuary, of an hereditary and exclusive 
cast of priests, of a ritual regulated by an acknowledged 
law, — we find no trace ; of a God common to all, a remem- 
brance starts up in periods of calamity, but passes away 
again with the hero who breaks the yoke of oppression. 
" Every one did as seemed best in his eyes," is the highly 
characteristic summing up of the later historian. It did 
seem best to all to worship the native idols and to live by the 
low standards of Canaanite morality. And, although we are 
accustomed to receive that sentence upon the generations 
of the time of the Judges as a censure, it is not unlikely 
that originally it was a triumphant exclamation of those who 
looked back and said, What a happy time it was when 
every one could do as he pleased ! — an experience that is 
not foreign to American political life. 

Of Samuel, the man who inaugurated the second period, 



*For a full discussion of the historic bearings and a new translation of these ancient relics, 
see Heilprin, The Historical Poetry of the Hebrews, Part I. p. 31, ff., and p. 101, ff. 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



79 



— Israelism, — we know, unfortunately, but little, yet the 
fragments of biography that have been saved strike the 
beholder as the limbs of a colossal statue : a giant mind, a 
granite will, a prophet of the God of hosts, — a very signi- 
ficant expression, first heard in his days. Here was a judge 
of whom it was said for the first time that ''he went from 
year to year, in circuit, to Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpah, 
and judged Israel in all those places (I. Sam* vii., 16). To 
measure such a man and his great work by the standards 
of our school-morality is evidently unjust. To weld the 
conflicting elements of the land, whose discords sometimes 
led to wars of extermination, into something like a unit, 
able to resist the often combined onslaughts of the aborig- 
inal chieftains, was an undertaking which required a hand 
as strong and will as firm as that of the iron Chancellor of 
the German Empire. Samuel shrank from no measure that 
seemed to him commanded by the pressing needs of his peo- 
ple. Indeed, he succeeded but too well for his own plan, 
which aimed at a theocracy under a prophet-judge, as media- 
tor between the invisible King in heaven and his earthly 
subjects. The people had been so thoroughly roused to the 
wisdom of his policy as to demand its consolidation through 
the founding of a monarchy ; nay, before he retired from 
the scene of his active life, all power had been wrenched 
from his hands, and Israelism was started on its way. As 
a religion, Israelism became a compromise between Jaho- 
vism and paganism ; a distinct recognition of the former, 
without an abandonment of the latter ; the Ashera next 
to the altar of Jehovah ; a latitudinarian sort of religion ; a 
spurious liberalism, the nature of which is illustrated in the 
life and death of the northern kingdom, which assumed the 
name of Israel : and who can doubt, had there been no other 
departure in any section of the country, that Israel would 
have passed away like all other nations, and been swallowed 
up in the floods of conquests that swept over Asia since 
the days of ancient Babylon ? The ten tribes were speedily 
absorbed in the countries whither they had been led cap- 
tives : they had no spiritual possession to sustain them ; no 



8o 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



idea that inspired them to resistance ; nothing peculiar that 
was worth defending ; nothing that could raise them above 
the level of the seething mass of races and religions that 
were huddled together in the great cities of the ancient 
empires. In vain had the prophets, trained in the schools 
founded by Samuel, tried to stem the tide of corruption and 
degeneracy, in vain had they even imbued their hands in 
royal and priestly blood. The God of hosts succumbed to the 
host of gods ; and he might have passed out of the memory 
of men, had not Saul's successor to the throne of the then 
united Israel conceived the idea of rearing his house on 
Zion. That David became the ideal king was due, not only 
to the brilliancy of his victories, but also, and perhaps em- 
inently so, to his idea of raising the first visible monument 
of the supremacy of Jehovah over all other gods. No shrine 
was to equal Jehovah's in magnificence, and therefore no 
god could be equal to Him in power and majesty. A cen- 
tral sanctuary visibly taught a central Deity, a highest God, 
an El Eljon ; and, further, since the completion of the Temple 
was contemporaneous with the highest degree of prosperity 
the old state had ever known, the idea that the welfare of 
Israel depended upon the fidelity to Jehovah taught people 
to comprehend, in their own way, what seers and poets were 
proclaiming as spiritual certainties. Unfortunately, Solo- 
mon's despotism caused the isolation of Judah from the rest 
of the tribes, and left her too weak for an independent career ; 
she had to seek alliances, now with the great foreign powers, 
now with the rival state ; and this it was that prevented 
the idea of David from resulting into a lasting victory of 
Jehovah. Still, the spirit which he had infused into his 
tribe continued to operate within the narrow limits of the 
southern kingdom ; and the rise of Jerusalem to a great and 
powerful city, a centre of culture and intellectual activity, and 
the seat of a centralizing government, trained the people to 
a feeling of unity, strong enough to survive the captivity. 
As Judah they went, as Judah they returned. Moreover, 
the central sanctuary led to the establishment of an organ- 
ized priesthood, an institution that has its undeniable perils, 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



81 



but equally undeniable advantages. Their excesses, their 
supineness to the court and its minions, combined with the 
sins of the people at large, wakened the thunders of the 
prophets, which are still able, although millennia have rolled 
on over their graves, to purify the moral atmosphere wher- 
ever they are heard. But save the state they could not, nor 
insure the recognition of Jehovah as the only God. No 
mere moralists, however high their ideal, can do that. - Means 
of coarser stuff than eloquence are required, in this rough- 
shod world, to carry the struggle for existence to a suc- 
cessful issue : material force, practical sagacity, comprehen- 
sion of the needs and the capacities of the people ; and in 
these qualities the prophets were deficient. We do not know 
of many of their predictions that came true. They were 
true in their moral essence, but politically, perhaps, worth no 
more than would be a philosopher's advice to the Americans 
how they should govern themselves. We are always ready 
to inveigh against the priests : our present temper makes us 
very impatient of their sacerdotal zeal ; but we ought, in fair- 
ness, not to overlook that, while the prophet is able to kindle 
an enthusiasm, he as often only consumes and destroys. 
It is the priest that builds up. An hereditary priesthood 
has its bright side. It is a wonderful thing to be born to a 
sacred calling, and to be told from childhood that we are 
consecrated for a high and holy office. Whilst the prophet 
chastises, it is the priest that learns how to correct, how to 
help the weakness of men. He lives with them, is liable to 
their errors and their sins, but for that very reason knows 
better how to overcome them. Notwithstanding the ter- 
rible charges that stand recorded against him, he may claim 
an honorable place in the annals of human progress ; the 
priesthood of Judaea were probably no exception to the gen- 
eral rule. And this fact comes to view : that not until the 
prophet joined hand with the priest did monotheism become 
a living and controlling force. 

The Babylonian captivity is usually considered as the time 
of a general conversion to the true religion. From this 
supposition, it is assumed that the work of Ezra and his co- 
il 



82 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



adjutors was a comparatively easy one; but I can find no 
evidence of such a deep-going change. Ezekiel's denuncia- 
tions are as bitter as those of his predecessors in the pro- 
phetic office ; and the " Great Unknown," as Ewald calls the 
author of the second part of Isaiah, finds it necessary to take 
up the burden of the first part in his invectives against the 
still prevailing idolatry. 

The truly faithful, whom he represents under the name of 
"servant of God," were evidently small in number; and, 
from his wonderful portraiture in the fifty-third chapter, we 
learn that they were held in contempt and derision, despised 
by their conquerors and shunned by their fellow-captives. 
It was they who greeted with delight the edict of release 
which God's messiah, Cyrus, issued, and who formed the 
nucleus of those who actually returned to Palestine. Had 
the conversion been indeed as universal as is supposed, the 
" acceptable year of the Lord" would have seen an exodus 
of far larger proportions. 

In passing, I will mention an ingenious hypothesis of the 
historian Gratz, according to which we possess, in the one 
hundred and seventh Psalm, the song of deliverance of that 
period, as a parallel to that which Moses is supposed to have 
sung on the borders of the Red Sea. 

A lasting change of heart was effected after the captivity 
by Ezra and his successors, under the influence of Judaism, 
of which it would be saying too little if we called it a refor- 
mation : we ought rather to call it a new religion, — new in 
spirit, new in aims, new in method. What, indeed, was there 
to reform in the old faith ? It was too deeply involved in 
heathenism for offering any scope for improvement. 

An entire change of front had to be made, if the people 
were not to relapse into their old errors. The praise which 
later generations lavished on Ezra was not unmerited : he 
was indeed a second Moses. It was said of him that he 
restored to the crown of the law its ancient lustre. 

He organized Judaism. The period of its growth — that is, 
from Ezra to the Maccabeus — is covered with much obscurity. 
Sufficient, however, is known to justify the thesis : No Juda- 
ism; — in our sense of the word, — no monotheism. 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 83 

It is, therefore, not a little surprising to find so able a 
writer as Mr. James Freeman Clarke (and I choose him in 
preference to others, because I know that he will hear me, 
and thus be able to correct me on the spot if I misconstrue 
his words) treating the period of the most decisive advance 
in monotheistic faith, with a few, sometimes even depre- 
ciatory, remarks, while its preceding stages receive the 
amplest attention. It is as if a writer on the history of 
America should devote his labor to the description of what 
happened before 1776, and then dismiss the following cen- 
tury with a few notes on the rise and growth of the United 
States. Mr. Clarke admits that the study of the Talmud is 
necessary for the right understanding of the rise ot Chris- 
tianity. Let us hope that henceforth no one will venture 
to give an opinion on that great question without having 
first consulted that storehouse of the ill-reputed traditions 
of the fathers ; especially that no one will hastily condemn 
the Hebrew masters before he has heard them in their 
own defence. But a knowledge of Hebrew tradition is as 
necessary for the proper understanding of the Old as it is 
for the New Testament. Guided by it, we shall no longer 
speak of a Judaism of Abraham, of Moses, or of David ; nor 
shall we any longer designate the religion of the latter as 
"the personal worship of a Friend and a Father." The 
voices that strike us as the outpourings of souls animated by 
such a faith come from hearts that have been attuned to their 
songs by the devoted labors of the Scribes. 

Many of the most touching of those prayers and outcries 
for the living God were first heard in the synagogues. 
Ewald, who at the present clay, must be called conserva- 
tive, finds, in all, but sixteen Psalms which he classes under 
the heading "David and his time." Sixty-one he assigns 
to the second, or pre-exile, and seventy-two to the post-exile, 
period ; among the latter, such gems as the one hundred 
and third, one hundred and fourth, one hundred and sev- 
enth. Hitzig places seventy-two as late as the Maccabean 
restoration, and holds that the last additions to our present 
collection were made about the year 85 before our era. 

■ 



84 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



The famous second Psalm, the messianic par excellence, is, 
according to him, the last addition to the Hymnal. Professor 
Robertson Smith claims Daviclic authorship for two Psalms 
only, — the seventeenth and the eighteenth. The conclusion 
at which Mr. Chadwick arrives is correct, — that we owe the 
preservation of the Psalms to the scribes, " of whom we are 
accustomed to say only hard things." But we must go fur- 
ther, — not the preservation only, but in many instances, their 
production. So that the Christian Church worships to this 
day her God in the spirit and in the words of those very 
men who, in homily and exposition, are held up as types of 
zealotism, hypocrisy, and superstition. 

The sources which Mr. Chadwick consulted convinced him 
that " never, at any time, did a more active principle of 
change preside over the fortunes of the Jewish people. And 
the change was as important as it was immense, — important 
for prospective Christianity as well as present Judaism. No 
Jewish synagogue, no Christian church ; no Jewish scribe, 
no Christian minister ; no Jewish gehenna, possibly no 
Christian hell/' etc.* 

This conviction leads him to seek for the missing link 
between the Old and New Testament writings ; and he dis- 
covers it in the Apocryphal Books. • But, apart from the 
question whether the material suffices for the "forging of 
the link," we must not forget that a literature does not 
spring out of nothing ; that it is the culmination of ante- 
cedent stages of intellectual life, the garnered fruit from 
fields that needed the toil of generations. 

The most momentous step which Ezra and his school took 
was the gathering up of the remains of the ancient litera- 
ture, and forming them into a sacred library. The national 
history and the teachings of prophets and poets were thus 
not only saved from oblivion, but were brought within the 
reach of the people, and made the common possession of all. 
An unfailing source of patriotic and religious inspiration 
was thus opened, an intellectual basis for religion was laid, 



* The Bible of To-day ; p. 155. 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



and — what can hardly be overrated, and for which the 
Scribes never yet received any credit — the authority of the 
priesthood as mediator between God and man received a 
wholesome check. Their oracles grew fainter and fainter, 
when the Book itself began to speak ; and with them the 
age of prophecy closed also, and that of Chochmah, or wis- 
dom, began. A most momentous change, since neither 
priest nor prophet reasoned, whilst the Chacham did. Ar- 
gument, not prediction, was henceforth the measure of 
authority. 

From the beginning, an open Bible proved a strong incen- 
tive to intellectual culture, and a safeguard against sacerdotal 
presumption. Copies of the sacred writings were dissemi- 
nated all over the land, and rituals devised and perfected by 
which their contents were held continually before the eyes 
of the faithful. 

Sabbath, festivals, new moons, were no longer distin- 
guished only by more numerous offerings in the Temple, but 
became days for searching the Scriptures. Twice a week, 
on Mondays and Thursdays, the peasantry brought their 
produce to the market-places : these were also the days when 
the law courts held their sittings. The opportunity was 
improved by inviting the country folk to the synagogues to 
hear the weekly section of the Law read and expounded. 
But those who had no such occasion for leaving their homes 
were not forgotten. Certain portions, setting forth the chief 
duties of believers (among them, that great command, "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, and 
might," etc.,) were selected for daily recitation. By and by, 
short, pithy prayers were added. These ancient liturgies, 
in their original forms (I say original, because in course of 
time they were overlaid with less commendable accretions), 
are marked by the same simplicity, directness, and unaf- 
fected piety that have endeared the prayer : Our Father 
. . . to Christians and to non-Christians. Instruction and 
devotion were thus made, from the beginning, the two chief 
elements of Jewish worship, and have remained so to this 
day. The reading, however, was then no privilege of the 



86 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



spiritual head. At each meeting, a number of laymen — if 
I may use that term — were called upon to recite parts of 
the weekly pericope, and invited to comment upon its 
contents. Before and after each reading was offered a 
short benediction for the spiritual blessing vouchsafed in 
the Law. The same is still retained in the synagogue. One 
reads as follows : " We give thanks unto thee, O Eternal 
God, Ruler of the world, that thou hast chosen us from 
among all nations, bestowed upon us thy Law, and planted 
eternal life in us." That shows us what was understood by 
the term "eternal life." At first, the lessons were taken 
from the book of the Law only, but later from the prophets, 
also. This explains the scene at the synagogue at Nazareth, 
where Jesus was offered a scroll, and read the messianic pre- 
diction of Isaiah. 

When the Hebrew began to yield to the Aramaic dialect, 
the Meturgeman, or interpreter, was placed by the side of 
the reader, and verse by verse he rendered the sacred text 
into the vernacular ; and thus was the word of God deliv- 
ered to the attentive congregation. Colleges and schools 
were opened in cities and villages, and attendance at them 
pronounced a most meritorious service of God. All these 
things did the Scribes of the school of Ezra. Is it, then, so 
dark a sin in them that they spoke contemptuously of the 
Am Haaretz, the ignorant boor; that they placed him under 
a sort of social ban ; that they honored one who was well 
versed in the Scriptures, though a stigma attach to his birth, 
— above the priest who could boast nothing but the length 
of his pedigree and the distinction of his office ? And who 
fell under this condemnation ? Not the unlettered generally, 
but those who wilfully refused to be taught ; those, for in- 
stance, who would not recite the Sh'ma, or daily acceptance 
of the kingdom of God, or who neglected from sheer worldli- 
ness to wear the Tephilin. What did such a one deserve ? * 



* Their saying, that no ignorant man can be pious, is often quoted against them, and as often 
misunderstood. The piety here referred to is not that of the heart, but scrupulosity in cere- 
monial observances : the ordinary Israelite is warned against the temptation of emulating the 
strictness of the learned pietist, lest he make himself ridiculous by his inability to discriminate 
between essentials and non-essentials. Enough for him to obey the rules laid down for general 
conduct. 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



87 



By these and similar means, reverence for the Scriptures 
sank deep into the heart of the people ; and can we wonder 
at their reluctance to admit into its hallowed circle books 
written long after it had been authoritatively closed, — 
books, moreover, which are anti-national in spirit, and em- 
ploy a phraseology which, to say the least, has a polytheistic 
ring in it. 

The popularization of the ancient writings led to various 
decisive results. It was to the Samaritan woman that Jesus 
is made to say that a time would come when God would be 
worshipped neither on Zion nor on Gerizim, but everywhere, 
in spirit and in truth. To her sect, that was a new doctrine. 
Not so to the Jews : these had learned it in Babylon, and in 
other countries of the Diaspora. But also in Palestine ; in 
spite of the - overshadowing grandeur of the Temple, the 
country was fairly studded with synagogues where God 
was so adored : they had virtually superseded the Temple. 
Jerusalem herself is said to have had four hundred such 
meeting-houses. The artisans' and laborers' guilds had their 
own ; so, also, the Jews of different countries, that came to 
the national capital either for the celebration of festivals or 
on private business ; nay, so powerful had their influence 
grown, that they forced their way into the very precincts of 
the Temple itself. In one of its largest halls, the daily ser- 
vices of prayer and praise and reading of Scriptures were 
performed. The sacrificial rites of the Temple were looked 
upon more in the light of a national institution, symbolizing 
national unity, and as such they were mainly honored, and 
their desecration by venal priests, or foreign conquerors re- 
sisted. But the heart's affections centred around the places 
where God was worshipped otherwise than by the offering 
of bulls and rams, and where the living word of instruction 
was dispensed by learned and pious teachers. Of this, no 
better evidence can be required than that which the New 
Testament writings themselves afford. The constantly grow- 
ing familiarity with the Scriptures brought the chief topics 
of prophetic teaching into greater prominence. Their bear- 
ings upon the questions of the day became the subjects of 



88 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



inquiries in the academies, and themes of discussion in the 
synagogues. Interest in them was yet stimulated by fric- 
tion with foreign ideas, which flowed into Palestine from the 
various countries with which the Jews had come into con- 
tact, either by war or by the intercourse with the brethren 
that had settled there, and who made pilgrimages to the 
national shrine, or were drawn thither as the centre of com- 
merce or the home of theological learning. 

The ethical spirit of the sacred traditions began to per- 
meate the nation. A high ideal of morality was perfected, in 
which righteousness and charity formed the chief features. 
The contrast between the demands of their own religion and 
those of other systems engendered a natural feeling of supe- 
riority ; and the high vocation of God's chosen servants, 
depicted in the glowing words of the ancient seers, was 
slowly being realized, and developed into a powerful impulse. 
The covenant of the fathers, established with Abraham, re- 
newed under the thunders of Sinai, and loaded with blessings 
for the faithful and terrible curses for the faithless, solemnly 
re-affirmed under Ezra and Nehemiah, as the foundation of 
the new order of things, created, as it were, a new national 
conscience. The indifferent and the apostates were looked 
upon as traitors to the pledged fidelity of the ancestors. 
Religion assumed a more awful aspect : life and death were 
involved in her fate. 

National misfortunes and humiliating proscriptions of 
the worship of Jehovah by foreign conquerors, brought the 
weight of outward pressure to bear upon the inward convic- 
tion ; and the blood of martyrs, which then commenced to 
flow, deepened the faith and quickened the energies of re- 
sistance in the hearts of the best of the nation. Rites and 
usages, which, at first, were but of minor importance, as- 
sumed greater holiness in the eyes of the pious and the 
patriotic, as marks of fidelity, until it became a rule, as the 
Talmud relates, that any ceremony for the observance of 
which Israel had suffered martyrdom must remain invio- 
lable forever. Suppose those who are so quick to condemn, 
— and who is not? — yea, to ridicule the Jews for their stub- 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



8 9 



born attachment to the traditions of the fathers, placed 
themselves in their position, and tried to answer the ques- 
tion whether it was an easy matter for them to tear their 
hearts away from the hallowed reminiscences of the nation ; 
whether it would have been honorable in them to surrender, 
at the first challenge, be it from friend or foe, the citadel, 
reared at such fearful cost, for the safety of the faith deliv- 
ered unto the fathers; whether it was, indeed, but "narrow 
bigotry " that kept them within the walls of their peculiar 
laws.* These laws, it is true, had grown to enormous pro- 
portions, and often engrossed the attention and exercised 
the ingenuity of the Rabbis in disquisitions that appear to 
us worthless. But, then, these generations were under the 
spell of a high enthusiasm, carried away by a zeal for an 
ideal that imparted a profound meaning to every tittle of 
the Law. God had indeed become a passion for them : his 
will was to sanctify every step, every act, every feeling, 
every word. Life was to be made a perpetual service to 
the Most Hisrh. 

o 

And, further, — we may ask, — was there not a kernel of 
spiritual truth of the utmost moment to mankind, to be 
guarded by these towering fences ? Was there no reason to 
tremble for it amid the moral degeneracy into which the 
most cultivated nations had lapsed, the gross and degrad- 
ing idolatries that prevailed everywhere, and appealed so 
forcibly to the weaker side of the human heart ? Farrar, 
the fanatic and sermonizing historian,! calls the world in 

* George Eliot is, to my knowledge, the first English writer who takes a just view; and she 
exclaims, with a courage that does her honor, " For my part, I share the spirit of the Zealots." 
— Impressions of Tkeophrastus Szich, chap . viii. 

t Two examples out of hundreds will suffice to justify this opinion of him. Page 196, he says: 
" Strange, if honesty, candor, sensibility, were utterly dead among them [the Jews]. Even 
among rulers, scribes, Pharisees, and wealthy members of Synhedrin, Christ found believers and 
followers," which amounts to this: that "honesty, candor, sensibility," are denied to all those 
who did not " believe and follow Christ," from whatever motive it be. Can bigotry go further? 
Part I. p. 262, he writes : " If the Jews had not acted in the spirit of hatred, we should not have 
had the charges against them in Tacitus: ' adversus omnes alios kostile odium'' ; and in Juve- 
nal : ' Non vio?istrare viam eadem nisi sacra colenti? " Has he forgotten that of the Chris- 
tians it was said, odium generis humani, which Merivale and Lecky interpret, They, the Chris- 
tians, bear hatred towards all men ; has he forgotten that the various sects of Christians charged 
upon each other the most revolting crimes and shocking barbarities and obscenities? (See 
Lecky.) Only one more instance of his ignorance or wilful perversion. Speaking of the bodily 

12 



90 INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

which the Jews lived "guilty and weary," and yet exhausts 
the vocabulary in vituperations against those who avoided 
contact with that world, and submitted themselves to the 
stern discipline of an exacting and burdensome law, so that 
they might save their souls alive, and keep themselves free 
from the pollutions of the world ! What obloquy has not 
been heaped on these lawyers and doctors and scribes and — 
I must now pronounce the hateful word — the Pharisees, 
those archetypes of hypocrisy, vanity, and intolerance ! In 
the whole range of human history, their equals are not to be 
found. Eighteen centuries of abuse have stamped an in- 
delible stigma on that name, and it is a hopeless task to 
attempt to erase it. It will probably remain to the end of 
days. 

The Christian believer will, of course, cite the authority of 
the Gospels for his justification. To him I have nothing to 
say. But to the Christian thinker I have. I would ask him 
to . pay some little attention to the following points, before 
he repeats his accusations. 

I. The Epistles are the earliest literary documents of the 
new faith. If I remember rightly, no charge of hypocrisy 
or wickedness against the scribes or Pharisees is preferred 
in them. If it is objected that these letters were addressed 
to Gentiles, and offered, therefore, no occasion for alluding 
to the Jewish doctors, I answer, We have an Epistle to the 
Hebrews. Its Pauline authorship is more than question- 
able.! Not so the date of composition, which is fixed, with 
tolerable agreement, at C.E. 60; that is, only thirty years 
after the events narrated in the Gospels. 

It is not likely that within that period the religious state 
of things had undergone any material change. If anything, 

sign of the covenant, he says: "Thus early did Christ suffer for our sakes, to teach us the spir- 
itual circumcision, the circumcision of the heart," etc. Six centuries before, the Deuteronomist 
and Jeremiah distinctly spiritualize that ancient rite. See Deut. x. , 16 ; xxx.,6; Jeremiah iv., 4. 
He cites approvingly St. Bonaventura : "We Christians have baptism, a rite of fuller grace, and 
free from pain.'''' And since the Jew would not be "free from pain," he is blind and worldly. 
One of the Moody and Sankey hymns begins with this noble exclamation, " I am free of the 
law!" 

t It has been recently reasserted by the learned Dr. Bierenthal, Das Trostschreiben des Ap. 
Paidus an die HebrQer. Leipzig, 1879. 



Monotheism and the jews. 91 

the influence of Phariseeism had grown more decisive and 
commanding, more rigorous through the stress of time. Yet 
we hear no such charges brought against the spiritual leaders 
and heads of schools as abound in the Gospels. If Paul was 
the author of the Epistle, he, better than any one else, must 
have known the true inwardness of the party ; yet he is not 
ashamed to call himself, elsewhere, a Pharisee of the Phari- 
sees, — a name of which he would have been justly ashamed,, 
had it indeed been a synonyme for hypocrisy and moral cor- 
ruption. 

Next in authenticity come the Acts. These, too, although 
they tell us so much of the conflict between the rulers of 
the Jewish party and the preachers of the young faith, are 
far more moderate in their language than the latest portions 
of the New Testament, — the Gospels. 

Now, as regards these latter, we have first the direct 
charges of Jesus himself, in the woes which he denounces 
against the Pharisees. Whether they are consonant with 
the character of a gentle, conciliatory, and compassionate 
preacher of a gospel of grace, I must leave others to judge. 

Then we have the statements of the narrators ; and, in 
reference to these, two things must strike us as singular, to 
say the least. 

First, that the accusations impugn the motives rather 
than the actions. The actions, up to the arraignment before 
the court, seem perfectly proper and becoming men who 
seek instruction from the lips of the Galilean teacher. But 
their arrieres pensees are always wicked and deceitful. They 
did so and so, we read, to find a cause against him, — to en- 
trap and entangle him in his own professions. How did 
the writers come to that knowledge of the hidden things of 
the heart ? Whence had they the power to read, with un- 
erring certainty, the intentions of the interlocutors ? Un- 
less revealed by God himself they could not possibly have 
known them. The crafty Pharisee will guard his secret 
better than that. 

Secondly, the Pharisees are very conspicuous in the Gos- 
pels, — in fact, play, next to the hero himself, the most 



9 2 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



important part in the drama. With one or two exceptions, 
why have they remained nameless ? * 

The events occurred in the broad daylight of a literary 
age, often in the presence of multitudes of disciples and 
admirers. Why do we always meet with this ominous 
phrase: "Certain scribes and Pharisees" or, "The scribes 
and Pharisees " ? The omission becomes more vexing, when 
we consider that "Pharisee" was not a title of dignity, like 
scribe, or of office, like priest, but the name of a party. How 
did it get into that connection at all ? A Scribe was a 
Pharisee just as the Roman Pontiff is a Catholic. Would 
any one, for instance, use a phrase like this, — " The ministers 
and deacons, and the Unitarians " ? That would lead us 
to believe that minister and deacon were not Unitarians. 
It cannot be reasonably assumed that the word other is un- 
derstood. Why should so simple a word, by which all mis- 
construction might be avoided, be so persistently omitted ? 
How is it that not one of the celebrated heads of schools 
is mentioned by name ? No Hillel, whom Renan supposes 
to have been the teacher of Jesus, no Shammai, — both men 
whose names were then in everybody's mouth, and whose 
academies were thronged with disciples ; no Jochanan ben 
Saccai, a commanding figure, the friend of the Romans, who 
must then have approached the prime of manhood ; no Jon- 
athan ben Uziel, the translator of the Bible, "held in bound- 
less honor," and many others. f Did none of these take any 
notice of what their associates (Chabarim, — that was the 
name by which they knew one another, — not Pharisees) 
were doing, or what the innovating Galilean was teaching 
about the observance of the Sabbath, concerning the law 
of marriage and divorce, eating with unwashed hands, or 
fasting ? 

In ancient times, the Jews refused to eat with publicans 
and sinners : in modern times, publicans and sinners refuse 
to eat with the Jews. 

* Bruno Bauer, Christus und die Caesar en, p. 9, speaking of the opponents of Jesus : the 
Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, and groups of people, calls them " unerklarte Namens- 
figuren" unexplained figures of names. 

| Enumerated by Farrar himself, I. p. 76. 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



93 



How different a being do we see, when one appears on the 
scene whom we do know from other sources, Rabbi Gamaliel, 
for instance, the preacher of the finest gospel of toleration ever 
proclaimed !* And, further, the doctrinal views of the Phar- 
isees, those by which tjaey were distinguished from other par- 
ties, and for which they naturally contended with special rigor, 
were precisely those on which alone the Christian dogma 
could be built. So that Mr. Chadwick's chain of " Noes " 
must have a link added to : No Pharisaism, no Christianity. 
Take only what Josephus tells us of the different tenets of 
the parties. The Pharisees, he says, ascribe all to fate (or, 
rather, providence, as Griitz translates),! and yet allow that to 
do what is right, or the contrary, is principally in the power 
of men, although fate does co-operate in every action. The 
Sadducees denied this : they may act as they please, says 
Josephus. On which of these two views rests the atone- 
ment ? "They [the Pharisees] teach that all souls are in- 
corruptible, — but that the souls of the good men are only 
removed into other bodies, but that the souls of the bad 
men are subjected to eternal punishment." 

Of the Sadducees, he says : they also take away the belief 
of the immortal duration of souls, punishment and reward in 
Hades. $ 

The bearing of this divergence on the belief of heaven 
and hell, and of the incoming kingdom of God, is obvious. 
The Pharisees affirmed, their opponents denied the validity 
of the tradition. This means, as Geiger and others have 
shown, that the first were progressive, the second reac- 
tionary ; the former democratic, the latter aristocratic ; the 
former the teachers of the synagogues and popular houses 
of instruction, the latter the proud upholders of the exclu- 
sive rights of the Temple and its priesthood. The former 
inclined toward leniency in the administration of penal 
laws, the other insisted on their literal fulfilment. The 
eye for eye theory, for instance, often cited as proof of the 



*Acts v., 34-40. t Geschichte der Juden vi., p. 508. 

% A ntiquities xviii. , 1-4 ; xiii., 5-9. 



94 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



merciless rigor of Pharisee justice, was one of the practical 
points on which the two parties split. It was the Sad- 
ducees who took the Mosaic rule literally, while the Phari- 
sees decided for a money indemnity. 

To which of these sides does Christianity, in its best 
mood, claim kinship ? 

If then the law, as Rabbi Paul of Tarsus taught, was " a 
schoolmaster unto Christ," it was so in its Pharisaic inter- 
pretation and development. Supposing, then, this to have 
been its function, has the schoolmaster no claim upon the 
gratitude of his pupils ? none upon their respectful treat- 
ment, even when his services are required no longer? Who 
said to him : Well done, thou good servant of the Lord ? 
It was not an easy task for him : he suffered much for his 
steadfastness, and gave his heart's blood in the defence of 
his office. What recompense has he ever received ? 

But it is said that was exactly the schoolmaster's fault : that 
he would not retire at the right time, — that he held onto his 
place, when he ought to have yielded to one greater than 
himself, and thus well-nigh undid his own work. In plainer 
words, Judaism ought to have ceased when Christianity 
arose. 

Before telling you how we look upon this demand, let me 
say one word more regarding the schoolmaster. He has not 
continued his labors altogether in vain. His first pupils re- 
main under his tutorship to this day, still walking by his 
light, — under conditions so desperate that their mere ex- 
istence is allowed to be one of the most astounding mira- 
cles of history. Their record is not a dishonorable one. 
At times, when priest-ridden Europe was sunk in igno- 
rance, superstition, and abject servitude, the disciples of the 
Pharisees enjoyed intellectual freedom, in single-handed 
combat resisted the haughty pretensions of the Church to 
the absolute dominion over reason and conscience ; and, 
under the most merciless persecutions and the most de- 
grading social ostracism, preserved their self-respect, their 
moral ideal, their religious faith and hope ; at times became 
the torch-bearers of science to the Christian world and 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS, 95 

leaders in philosophic thought, as you may read in Draper, 
Lecky, Schleiden, and others. Well, if the witness of his- 
tory is invoked to prove the greatness of the daughter (and 
I have no intention to gainsay it), need the mother blush 
and shrink before it ? 

But now let me tell you why we think that the school- 
master had very substantial reasons for being so tenacious 
of his office. And, in order that I may be sure to state the 
case against him fairly, let me quote the very words of the 
indictment. 

Mr. Clarke says,* "When the Jews rejected Christ, they 
ceased from their providential work; and their cousins, the 
Arabs, took their place." This is a brief but very incisive 
verdict. What, indeed, can be more humiliating to us than 
to be told that our fathers have wilfully renounced their 
high calling, and have, as it were, persisted in living and 
working against Providence ; and that we, in spite of all 
the warnings we have had, friendly and otherwise, continue 
in their blind course to this day ? 

Surely no fault can be found with us, if we try an appeal. 
Our first defence is furnished by Mr. Clarke himself. Be- 
tween the supposed "rejection of Christ" (and I shall have 
to say a word on that presently) and the unfolding of the 
standard of the Arabian prophet, there intervened near six 
hundred years. His religion drew its life-blood from Juda- 
ism. Speaking of Mohammed's flight to Medina, Mr. Clarke 
says:f "At Medina and its neighborhood there had long 
been numerous and powerful tribes of Jewish proselytes. 
In their conflicts with the idolaters, they had often predicted 
the speedy coming of a prophet like Moses. The Jewish 
influence was great at Medina. Now it must be remembered 
that at that time Mohammed taught a kind of modified 
Judaism. He came to revive the religion of Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob. He continually referred to the Old Testament 
and the Talmud for authority. . . . The semi-Judaized pil- 
grims from Medina to Mecca were quite prepared to accept 
his teachings." 



* Ten Great Religions, p. zq, 



tp 463, 



g6 INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

He then relates the vision or dream in which Mohammed 
was carried by Gabriel on a winged steed to Jerusalem, to 
meet all the prophets of God, and thence to the seventh 
heaven, — an admission, on the prophet's part, that he de- 
rived the highest sanction for his religion from the Hebrew. 
In spite of Mr. Clarke's depreciating estimate of Moham- 
medanism, he allows "that it was needed when it came, 
and has done good service in its time."* But that "good 
service " is largely due to the Jews, and their continued 
submission "to the schoolmaster," without which they could 
never have paved the way for the conversion of hundreds of 
millions to the monotheistic belief. Their "providential 
mission" did not cease with the supposed "rejection of 
Christ." 

Again, that the monotheism of the orthodox churches is 
not of the perfect kind may be assumed in this assembly ; 
and, further, that it is a matter of vital consequence for the 
development of that which is best and most healthful in 
Christianity whether that foundation truth is recognized in 
its purity or obscured by the shadows of lingering poly- 
theism. This is the root of your dissent from the pop- 
ular creeds : for this you have borne their scorn, and their 
denial of Christian fellowship.! Now, since it was the 
Jews that have all along raised their protest against the 
Trinitarianism of the Church, they have clearly fought 
the battle of Christianity against the enemies of her 
own household. Their "providential mission" must, at all 
events, have continued until their religious cousins, the 
Unitarians, took their place. 

Now as to the "rejection of Christ." I understand what 
the phrase means in the mouth of a Catholic or an orthodox 
Protestant. With these, it is equivalent to rejecting God, 

*Is that time passed? 

tDr. Channing's famous sermon, "Unitarian Christianity most favorable to Piety," has for 
text the very words which still form the chief doctrine of the synagogue : " Hear, O Israel, the 
Lord our God is one Lord." " As you would feel the full influence of God upon your soul, guard 
sacredly, keep unobscured and unsullied that fundamental and glorious truth that there is one, 
and only one, Almighty Agent in the universe,— one Infinite Father," said the Christian sage, in 
the spirit of Hebrew prophecy, 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



97 



and the only chance of saving one's soul alive. But with 
the liberal, the Unitarian Christian, what does it mean? 
Jesus preached no new God, never thought of abolishing 
the Law ; nor am I willing to admit (though his biographers 
make it appear so) that he was so wanting in patriotism, 
and so deficient in devotion to his people's cause against 
the foreign oppressor, — that he would have counselled a 
loosening of the national bonds at a time when nothing but 
the most determined and concentrated resistance could save 
both country and religion from the iron grasp of the con- 
queror. If he was not the " Lamb of God that taketh away 
the sins of the world," if he did not claim to be " a national 
Messiah," — that is, a Kossuth or a Bismarck, — then he was 
a teacher, and no more. Suppose him to be, as is claimed, 
the greatest and best of all, — what then? Can his " rejec- 
tion " have the fatal effect of turning the whole course of 
a people's history from a "providential" to an anti-prov- 
idential end ? He shared the fate of all moralists. Some 
were made better by him, the generality went their accus- 
tomed ways. But I deny that the people ever did reject 
him. On the showing of the Gospels themselves, he was 
everywhere received with respect, listened to with attention 
and delight. He and his disciples were hospitably enter- 
tained wherever they appeared. I maintain that the bearing 
of the Jews toward the Galilean preacher was that of an 
educated, intelligent, tolerant, and kind-hearted people, 
trained by their religious teachers to reverence those who 
expounded the word of God to them. Free speech, says 
Zunz, had found a home in Palestine. The people, as such, 
had no share in his tragic fate. Jost, our distinguished 
historian, denies even that he was sentenced by a properly 
constituted Synhedrin. If Israel, by his death, suffered a 
great loss, it was their misfortune, not their guilt. They 
are as little accountable for the sentences of their courts 
as for the wild clamor for blood of the rabble in a great 
city, in times of popular excitement. What the Jews did 
reject was the deified Jesus of later years, — the Son of God 
that was before the foundation of the world, the Eternal 

13 - .' 



9 8 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Word that was made flesh, — and that they were in duty 
bound to do : that they did, not in contravention, but in 
fait /if 71 1 obedience to their mission. 

Let us now listen to Kuenen's summing up of his great 
work on the religion of Israel. He says : " Christians have 
much too long, in spite of history, regarded the fall of Jeru- 
salem as a divine retribution for the murder of the Messiah. 
It is time that the last remnant of that view should disap- 
pear." Certainly, for if the fall of Jerusalem is an argument 
against Judaism, then the death of Jesus is an argument 
against Christianity ; and the deaths of Huss and Servetus 
and Giordano Bruno, against the freedom of reason and con- 
science for which they gave their lives. 

Kuenen then goes on to say "that the condemnation of 
the prophet of Nazareth was a powerful protest against Uni- 
versalism, an energetic assertion of the legal and strictly 
national principle." 

Now, on the subject of Universalism as antagonistic to 
Jewish nationalism, a great deal is said that seems to me ill- 
considered and superficial ; more like attempts to explain 
Judaism away, and to find a basis for the opposition of 
Christianity to it, than an honest, truthful verdict on the 
evidence of history. One should think that the idea of 
One God over all could never be otherwise than universal ; 
it all depends upon how many nations are willing or pre- 
pared to accept it. 

What of separatism there is in a religion that makes that 
faith its corner-stone appertains to its temporary expression 
only. The question, how much or how little of it is to be 
tolerated, at what time it ought to be exchanged for other 
forms, is one of which those most immediately concerned 
with the preservation of the central truth are not only the 
best, but the sole, judges. We, viewing the struggle from so 
great a distance, unable to realize the agonies of a Jewish 
heart when the alternatives were placed before it, — law 
or no law, country or no country, freedom or bondage, Jeru- 
salem or Rome, — find it easy enough to take our side. 
When shall we learn to practise the simple rules of justice, 



t 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



99 



to say nothing of gratitude, towards those by whose wounds 
we were healed ? 

Wherein, indeed, did Judaism differ from the Church of 
to-day ? Its gates were open to all : proselytes were ac- 
cepted, converts welcomed, — nay, sought, — as early as the 
Babylonian captivity; for, in the latter Isaiah, words of 
encouragement are spoken to them.* That submission to the 
Jewish Law was demanded was a necessity in a world 
steeped in idolatry and immorality, as the experience of 
the Apostle to the Gentiles proves. For we find that, as 
soon as his controlling presence was withdrawn from his new 
plantations, they were invaded by vicious practices and ob- 
scenities, which the pagans were accustomed to connect with 
their worship. In looking over the first three or four cen- 
turies of the Church, nothing strikes one so much as the 
helplessness of the professors of the new faith to find a rule 
of conduct consonant with it ; and we know into what ex- 
travagances and inhumanities they fell. 

Judaism said, " I have a faith and a rule of life, and offer both 
freely to the Gentiles." Its missionary work was not, how- 
ever, limited to the actual acceptance of both. A leaven of 
monotheistic faith permeated society wherever the Jews had 
settled. Mr. Huidekoper f has proved this, with a com- 
manding array of evidence which would have been made 
stronger still, had he not, for unaccountable reasons, sys- 
tematically ignored all Jewish authorities, except Josephus, 
Philo, and the Sibylline Poems. He further shows that the 
Jewish influence was enlisted on the liberal side of poli- 
tics ; that the Jews were the mechanics of the empire ; and 
that, wherever they settled in sufficient numbers, a healthier 
moral tone is distinctly perceptible. 

The Jews were on the way to denationalize their mono- 
theism by a natural process, and would have continued it, 
had their work not been arrested by the ascending power 
of the Church. They were driven back, first from their 
outposts, then from their encampments, and had finally to 
fall back upon their ancient stronghold ; and, having no 



* Isaiah lvi., 3. f Judaism at Rome. New York: James Miller. 1876. 



100 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



mind to show the white flag, made it more impregnable 
than ever. 

Christianity has her national churches to this day, with as 
rigid a government and as iron a discipline as was ever 
known in Judaea. And what shall we say of the Church 
of Rome, the mistress of the largest area of Christendom ? 
Is her universalism preferable to that of ancient Hebrew 
nationalism? The Hebrew constitution had a heart for the 
stranger, securing for him food, shelter, and raiment, and 
protection from oppressive legislation.* The keys of St. 
Peter close the door against him, and consign him to hell- 
fire. The Talmud teaches, in so many words : the righteous 
of all nations shall be heirs to the future world. How many 
churches are there to-day that will subscribe to that? And 
a righteous Gentile was he who obeyed the so-called seven 
Noachian commandments, which contain the abjuration of 
idolatry, and the first principles of morality. Some go so 
far as to assert that any Gentile who forsakes idols, though 
he be but darkly feeling after the truth, deserves to be called 
a Jew. Again I ask: How many Christian churches to-day 
can boast so much universalism ? Kuenen also ventures 
upon this astounding assertion: "Had the majority of the 
people been able to take the road indicated by Jesus, per- 
haps the struggle of life and death might have been pre- 
vented." Does he mean that the Jewish nation would have 
perished ingloriously without it, or that they would have 
preserved their independence ? Let him point to a single 
instance where the moral and religious elevation of a peo- 
ple released the iron arm of Rome, or influenced her mer- 
ciless policy of conquest and spoliation. On the contrary, 
an increase of national strength would have brought on the 
deadly conflict much sooner. And what was the fate of 
those who "took the road indicated by Jesus" so fully that 
they called themselves by his name ? Did they live in peace 
with Rome? And these were people without any political 
aspirations. Why were they persecuted and martyred? 

Kuenen closes his work with these words : " Her religion 



* An anathema is pronounced in the Pentateuch against him who " perverteth the judgment 
of the stranger" (Deut. xxvii., 19). 



MONOTHEISM AX.D THE JEWS. 



101 



was to kill Judah. But when the Temple burst into flames, 
her religion had already spread its wings, and gone out to 
conquer an entire world." 

That is true not for Christianity only, but for Judaism as 
well. It, too, had lano; before found refuse in distant lands, 
— in Egypt, in Babylonia, throughout Asia Minor, all along 
the Mediterranean coast, the banks of the Rhine, in the 
heart of Germany, — not to conquer, to be sure, but to 
suffer for the steadfast and heroic profession of the One 
God, whom Christianity soon began to materialize and pa- 
ganize. And yet not only to suffer. The prevailing idea 
is still that the Jew, during the long and dreary centuries 
of his persecutions, did nothing but drag along his rab- 
binical chains, burying his face in the Talmud ; that money- 
making and cursing the Christians were his only occupation. 
That it was far otherwise must have been the startling dis- 
covery of those who read Schleiden's admirable papers on 
the services rendered by the Jews to science, and, more 
recently, the learned discussion of Mr. Jacobs, in The 
Ninetee?ith CentiLiy, on the "God of Israel"; or those who 
have looked at the Bodleian Library and the British Mu- 
seum, with their thousands of Hebrew works, "the con- 
gealed thought" of the Hebrew mind, since the disruption 
of the national unity. It never ceased to think; it never 
wearied of searching after the most perfect way of serv- 
ing God and sanctifying life. Nor was the lyre of Judah 
silenced. Songs of immortal beauty, in the accents of the 
prophets and bards of old, swept over its chords. The woes 
of Israel's hea\y heart found vent in tearful elegies, and also 
indited wild outcries to God for his aveng-ino- arm, — blame 
them who may. Men of towering intellect, graced by the 
most childlike piety, meet the eye in all centuries, the 
darkest not excepted ; heroes of faith and of thought both, 
whose fervent word and noble example sustained their 
brethren in their unparalleled trials. Had it not been so, 
would the Jew of to-day be what he is ? Would he evince 
that mental vigor and moral healthfulness which enable 
him to obtain the position he holds in science, literature, 
art, polities ? 



102 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Do I then say, Judaism is the perfect religion ? I confess 
my inability to understand how any religionist who has 
looked about him can ever lay this flattering unction to 
his soul. What, indeed, do we know of other religions ? 
Hardly more than the merest outside. By what process 
can we look into the soul of a Buddhist, when, wearied with 
this life, he cries out for Nirvana; or comprehend the 
rapture with which the faithful Arab approaches the Caaba, 
and makes his seven circuits, or listens to the exquisite 
Koran, intelligible only to him, and to no mere philologist ? 
Or how can a Jew feel the awe with which the believing: 
Christian looks up to the thorn-crowned face of his cru- 
cified Redeemer? Or how, on the other hand, can the 
Christian sound the depth of feeling with which the Jew 
hears the great battle-cry of his race? Was he by the bed- 
side of father and mother who, with that solemn profession, 
sealed their last blessing, and resigned their spirits into the 
hands of the Creator? Was his mind filled with pictures 
of men, women, and children rushing into the flames of the 
Inquisition, crying the same words into the ears of their 
tormentors ? You must ha\~e experienced Christianity to 
appreciate its grandeur and beauty; but cannot Buddhist, 
Mohammedan, Jew, say the same? 

All religions are the offspring of human needs, and bear 
in them the imperfections of their origin. They are the 
products of the strongest and the weakest sides of our 
nature, and have much to do with that dark spot in our 
brain of which Goethe speaks, and which the most intrepid 
philosopher cannot light up. Mine is no exception ; but it 
is best for me. It pleases me best, because it is free and 
progressive, and takes me right to my God, throws me at 
his feet, and shows me the merciful face of a father with- 
out any intercession of man or angel. 

But you may say, Is that the God of the Old Testament ? 
He is fashioned rather in the likeness of an Oriental 
tyrant than a loving parent, — ein Doimergott, as the Ger- 
man Rationalists have surnamed him. Suppose it were 
true, what of that ? The Bible is, with us, the beginning 
of our belief, not its end ; the starting point, not its con- 



MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. 



IO3 



summation. There it bursts forth in all its primitive fresh- 
ness and impetuosity, and we go there for our invigoration ; 
but we do not feel bound to lie down by its side and refuse 
to draw for our thirst from other wells. But is it true ? 

The God of Nature, — does he not thunder, not send forth 
his lightnings ? Do his storms not uproot forests, and hurl 
ships to the bottom of the sea, and open the earth to swal- 
low up the dwellers thereon ? All we say of him as " a Father 
and Friend" are words of faith, but too sadly conflicting with 
the "lessons from nature." Do we understand his coun- 
sels ? Has the Christian found out more about the hidden 
things of God than we ? What one does not understand he 
may call either whim or unfathomable wisdom : faith chooses 
the latter ; and there is no expression of divine love and 
mercy, but may be read in the Old Testament as well as in 
the New, and that is enough for us. 

Have we learned nothing from Christianity ? I hope we 
have. I think we are fully entitled to it, in return for what 
it received from us. I trust we shall learn yet more. We 
are ready to receive light from whatever quarter it breaks 
forth. The relations between mother and daughter have 
passed through several stages : for a long time there was 
open warfare ; then, as days grew brighter with the light 
of humanity, it was changed into armed neutrality ; to this 
succeeded our present state of a friendly neutrality. 

But I, and many with me, long to see it changed into 
something better still : a cordial fellowship in all things that 
lead us on toward an increase of light and a more perfect life 
in goodness and righteousness ; not that we pare down our 
faiths until they all become alike in their nothingness. We 
may remain what we are, and yet become better than we are, 
and achieve more glorious triumphs of love and toleration 
than have already been achieved. As far as I can see, there 
is but one body of Christians that has advanced far enough 
for such a providential mission : it is the Unitarian ; to you 
then I say, in the words of him who is of my kindred and 
whom you acknowledge as your master, " Blessed are the 
peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God," 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



By Rev. JOHN W. CHADWICK. 

Certainly, it is not with any expectation of satisfying 
you or myself with what I have to say this morning concern- 
ing the highest of all themes, that I venture to approach it, 
and invite your company. The wisest here, however satis- 
factory they may be to others, will not be so to themselves. 
They will be less so in the future than they have been in the 
past. As knowledge widens with the lapse of time, less and 
less satisfactory will be men's speech concerning God. Lan- 
guage does not keep pace with thought and feeling. Two or 
three thousand, and even two or three hundred, years ago, 
men had but little difficulty in finding words to express all 
they knew, or thought they knew, about God. Now it is dif- 
ferent : the wisest lay a hushing finger on their lips. 

" Thought is deeper than all speech, 
Feeling deeper than all thought; 
Souls to souls can never teach 
What unto themselves is taught." 

Meantime, the air is thick with talk of atheism, with dole- 
ful prophecies and dreadful warnings. With the spread of 
atheism, we are assured, there will be a fearful moral revolu- 
tion. Men will seek evil, and pursue it. They have done 
right so far, because they have felt God's eye to be upon 
them, or because they have expected to give an account of 
their actions in another world. Such is the doctrine ; and, 
if it is true to any great extent, it would seem that there 
must follow some enfeeblement of the moral life. But it 
may be doubted whether the efficacy of the fear of hell, as " a 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



I05 



hangman's whip to hold the wretch in order," has not, of late, 
been overrated, and equally the dread of God's omniscience. 
It may also be doubted whether there is as much real athe- 
ism in the community as our terrorists insist. Men are 
silent, or speak little, because anything they can say seems so 
inadequate to express the sense of mystery which presses on 
their hearts. Many who are considered atheists do not con- 
sider themselves so, although they may prefer being consid- 
ered so to having their attitude confounded with that of the 
majority. What they object to is not so much belief as defi- 
nition. When Joubert says, " It is not a difficult matter to 
believe in God, if we are not asked to define him," it is not 
that he would be at liberty to believe in him as little as pos- 
sible, but that he would be left free to expand his thought 
and feeling without bound ; because defined is refined. So, 
too, when Matthew Arnold says : " We, too, would say God, 
if the moment we said God you would not pretend that you 
know all about him." The majority of reputed atheists are 
men whose thought and feeling ab®ut God transcend all 
ordinary statements, all popular definitions. Henry Thoreau 
said, " It would seem as if atheism must be comparatively 
popular with God." Why, but because the so-called atheists 
are often men who reverence God too much to put their 
thought or feeling about him into any form of words ? It is 
not to be denied, however, that there are those who not only 
consider themselves atheists, but wish to be considered so by 
others, insisting that they have no right to claim immunity 
from any odium which properly attaches to this designation. 
But this, in many cases, is only a concession of the right of- 
the majority to determine the significance of words. In 
others, it is a sort of vanity. In perfect frankness, it must 
be allowed that there are those in every community who 
consider atheism something smart. The satisfaction which 
such persons take in their atheism implies the God whom 
they deny. He must exist, in order that they may have the 
distinction of saying to him, " Don't flatter yourself : we do 
not believe in you." Their imagination affirms him, in order 
that their vanity may have the satisfaction of denying him to 

14 



io6 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



his face. But, among earnest, thoughtful men, real atheism 
is so rare a bird that few have ever seen its raven plumage, 
or heard the utter melancholy of its cry. 

" Man cannot be God's outlaw if he would ; 
Nor so abscond him in the caves of sense 
But nature still shall search some crevice out, 
With messages of splendor from that source 
Which, dive he, soar he, baffles still, and lures ! " 

Even the would-be materialist, of the most unqualified stamp, 
who insists that there is but one substance in the world, and 
that this one substance is matter, only succeeds in spelling 
the name of his deity with six letters, instead of three : 
M-a-t-t-e-r, instead of G-o-d. For, as Tyndall long ago 
declared, " If life and thought are the very flower of matter, 
any definition of matter which omits life and thought must be 
inadequate, if not untrue." "No man has seen God at any 
time," says the New Testament. And this is just as true of 
him if you spell his name with six letters as if you spell it 
with three. No man has seen Matter at any time. What 
we call matter is in reality " mind-stuff," argues the late 
Prof. Clifford. Emerson is hardly less God-intoxicated than 
Spinoza ; and yet his saying, "The divinity is in the atoms," 
is only a more poetic and impressive form of Biichner's 
suicidal confession that matter, as such, has " a tendency to 
combine." 

The silence of some men concerning God seems to me 
vastly more reverent than the garrulity of others. Here a 
nameless thought, and there a multitude of words. Tho- 
reau's idea about atheism being comparatively popular with 
God was also Plutarch's, who expressed it with greater ful- 
ness. "I, for my own part," he said, "had much rather men 
should say that there is not, and never was, any such person 
as Plutarch, than that they should say Plutarch is an un- 
steady, fickle, fro ward, vindictive, and touchy fellow." And 
so he inferred that God would rather have men deny his 
existence, than speak of him as unsteady, fickle, and so on. 
But, then, Plutarch was a pagan, and had pagan deities* in 



As libellous caricatures of the ope God of his philosophy, 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



I07 



mind. Christians would not, perhaps, be open to such criti- 
cism. Do they ever represent their God as unsteady, fickle, 
or vindictive ? But Plutarch's simile assumes that God is not 
the actual of the popular ideal. Were he the actual of Cal- 
vin's, I can fancy he would still appreciate the refusal of a 
man to believe him to be this, at its just value, even as a 
mortal man, although a conscious knave, would still appreci- 
ate a neighbor's misplaced confidence in his veracity and 
honor. Meantime is there not more of real reverence in 
these six lines of Goethe than in all the creeds of all the 
sects ? — 

" Him who dare name 
And yet proclaim, 
Yes, I believe ? 
Who that can feel 
His heart can steel 
To say, I disbelieve ? " 

" Can man by searching find out God ? " asks the Old Testa- 
ment ; and the New Testament of Modern Science repeats the 
question with an accent of yet deeper sadness. But our case is 
not so pitiful as it would be if God did not find us out, whether 
we search for him or not. The most that all our searching 
does is generally to find, not God, but some excuse or reason 
for the ineradicable faith in him, which is implanted in the 
most of us so deeply that I do not wonder that many have 
mistaken it for a primitive datum of consciousness. I doubt 
if any man ever consciously argued himself, or was argued, 
into any real faith in God, — into aught more than some skin- 
deep belief in him. Faith in God is literally "the faith that is 
in us." How came it there ? By supernatural revelation, shall 
we say ? But revelation presupposes a revealer. Faith in a 
revelation presupposes faith in God. For the message to be 
sent, there must be a sender. For the message to be com- 
pletely trusted, it must be impossible for God to lie. Thus, 
antecedent to all revelation, we must have the assurance of a 
veracious God. Moreover, with the advance of knowledge, 
it becomes more and moire unlikely that there has ever been 
any such thing as supernatural revelation. The genesis of 
the belief, common to all religions, is easily accounted for 



io8 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



without the intervention of a single supernatural fact. The 
argument of Hume, " It is more likely that evidence should 
be false than that a miracle should be true," has never yet 
been proved fallacious, and grows in strength as men more 
clearly recognize that evidence, in order to be false, need not 
be consciously so. To evade the force of this argument by 
admitting that the miracle is natural is to discharge the 
miracle of all authoritative significance. It must be super- 
natural, in order to be invested with a divine authority. But, 
if "the faith which is in us" — in the most of us, surely — 
did not come by revelation, how does it come ? A very com- 
mon answer is, By intuition. But what is an intuition ? A 
necessary truth, answers the transcendentalist, — a necessary 
truth, perceived by the reason without any assistance from 
the understanding. But intuitions of this sort do not enjoy 
the high repute to-day which they did formerly. It begins to 
be doubted whether -there are any such intuitions ; whether 
the mind can be split up into reason and understanding, or, 
at least, whether — to parody a saying of Herbert Spen- 
cer's, " Expression is feature in the making" — the under- 
standing is not reason in the making. The philosophy of 
experience inclines to the opinion that even "necessary 
truths" are discovered to be such by observation and experi- 
ment and reflection, that they do not inhere in mind as 
such. This philosophy also talks of intuitions, but its intui- 
tions are not like those of the transcendentalist, — a kind of 
super-rational revelation, privately communicated to each indi- 
vidual soul. They are the products of ancestral and race- 
experience organized in us. Let us proceed upon this under- 
standing. 

Our faith in God, then, is an intuition, — the flower of an 
hereditary experience, whose roots are buried in an immemo- 
rial past. Thanks for its beauty and its fragrance, as it 
opens in the hushed seclusions of our hearts ! But, evidently, 
an intuition of this sort, a product of inherited experience, 
can have no such authority as would the intuition of the 
transcendentalist, if this were all which it was formerly con- 
ceived to be. Some, indeed, may be so constituted that they 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



IO9 



can enjoy the great inheritance on which they enter here, 
without ever thinking or wondering how it came to them, 
and whether it is lawfully theirs. The majority are, in fact, 
so constituted. But there are not a few who, once they know 
that the faith which is in them is no supernatural gift, no 
organic necessity, but an inheritance from the past, must set 
about to find the title-deeds, must know, if possible, how the 
estate was earned, — what work was done, what battles fought, 
before it was entailed to them. This is the meaning of a 
world of patient study, in these latter days, into the origin 
and development of men's religious ideas. Tylor and Spen- 
cer and Coulange and Lubbock and the rest, what are they 
but patient searchers of our title-deeds, in order that we may 
know whether our right is indefeasible in this estate of faith 
in God which has come down to us from immemorial times ? 
Honor to those who, finding themselves unable to make out 
their title to their own satisfaction, vacate the premises ; 
albeit, for them to do so is to go forth, like Abraham, not 
knowing whither. For such, also, believe me, there is " a city 
that hath foundations." But happy they who dare believe 
that their inheritance, however dubious the title of their re- 
motest ancestors, has in the course of centuries been fairly 
earned ; and that, when superstition's every lien upon it has 
been discharged, it will still be ample for the free soul to revel 
and rejoice in, without fear of any interdict of science or 
any challenge that the lords of reason can oppose to her 
possession. 

It cannot be denied that an element of unreality enters 
very largely into the primitive idea of God, if the genesis of 
this idea has been correctly made out by the most learned 
anthropologists and sociologists. There are those who think 
that, when the genesis of this idea has been shown to be 
involved in misconceptions almost innumerable, the idea has 
itself been relegated to the sphere of childish superstition. 
If the phenomena of sleep and trance first suggested to 
mankind the idea of "an inner man," — a soul ; if the anal- 
ogy of sleep and death suggested that the soul was still alive 
when its "last sleep" had settled on the body; if the ances- 



no 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



tral ghosts thus arrived at, from being at first regarded as 
mere human ghosts to be invoked, placated, and so on, came 
at length to be regarded as gods, the ghost-food passing over 
into sacrifice, the invocations into prayers ; if, further on, 
stones and trees, then clouds, and heat and cold, and wind, 
and sun and moon and stars, — all came to be regarded as the 
seats of ghostly power ; if this is a correct interpretation of 
the phenomena of primitive religion, does not the idea of 
God engendered in this ghostly atmosphere become itself as 
" thin as a ghost" ? How from the midst of so much unreal- 
ity could ever come, by any legitimate process, the idea of 
that Supreme Reality which we of modern times mean to 
suggest, as often as we speak of God? 

My answer is that, if the beginning of the God-idea was 
such as I have tried to indicate, — and I believe that it was 
so, — we ought not to confound the essence of the feeling 
out of which it came with the irrational psychology with 
which it was associated. The essence of the feeling was 
a sense of the mysteriousness of human life. That which 
oppressed the primitive man with awe and wonder was 
essentially the same face before which our latest science 
stands abashed, — the connection between mind and body. 
It was the mystery attaching to the thought of ghostly 
ancestors, peopling the forest-haunts with shadowy denizens, 
that made it possible for the sentiment of worship to go out 
to them from the poor savage heart ; and, however trivial the 
psychology, the mystery was real enough : so that to say 
that the first step in the evolution of the God-idea was un- 
real is to mistake its formal accident for its essential char- 
acter. And so, further along, grant that the indwelling life 
ascribed to tree or stone, which constituted these objects 
fetiches, or to sun and moon and stars in the next stage, 
which we call nature-worship ; grant that this indwelling life 
was made up to the imagination of the savage of one or more 
of the great company of ghosts which, by this time, had 
quite forgotten, as it were, their human relations, — the fact 
remains that, antecedent to this theory of ghostly life, there 
must have been the sense of life to be accounted for. What 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



I I I 



the savage did was to account for it by the only life with 
which he felt himself to be acquainted. His intentions were 
excellent. He thought he was proceeding from the known 
to the unknown. In the strictest sense, it may be said that 
the god-idea was not fairly born until the world of ghosts had 
gradually become a vast mysterious realm of life, an incalcu- 
lable store of energy on which the savage mind could draw 
in order to account for any natural phenomenon that ap- 
pealed to it for a solution of the mystery of its seeming life. 
The key of his position, meanwhile, was his sense of seem- 
ing life to be accounted for. The god he really worshipped 
was this seeming life. His ghostly explanation was, no 
doubt, entirely insufficient. But it was not his explanation 
that he worshipped. It was the seeming life which he en- 
deavored to explain. 

The next step beyond nature-worship in the development 
of the God-idea was polytheism ; the worship of many gods, 
not in objective forms as in fetichism and nature-worship, 
but as imaginary beings, whose genesis is to be accounted 
for in various ways. As the phenomena of nature and society 
were rudely classified, a single spirit was imagined as the 
controlling deity of each separate class. The choice of this 
deity was variously determined. "To him that hath shall 
be given," was a controlling principle. As the big fish eat 
up the little ones, so the .big gods devoured their smaller 
rivals. The favorite gods of nature-worship became the 
gods of polytheism, to the exclusion of their less significant 
companions. Another source of income to the polytheistic 
pantheon was the apotheosis of distinguished chiefs, war- 
riors, medicine-men, and so on, for whom the attributes of 
the nature myths had a remarkable affinity. But in this 
polytheistic stage of the god-idea the noticeable thing is this, 
that what was really worshipped was the hidden life, which 
was the background of phenomenal existence. The gods 
of polytheism were but so many explanations of this life, 
then the most reasonable that could be had. But the real 
object of worship was the hidden life; the Power that made 
the trees wave and the waters flow, the sun and moon and 



112 INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

stars to shine, the earth to rise out of her wintry grave clad 
in the spring-time beauty. The only unreality was in the 
explanation. The mystery which polytheism endeavored to 
explain was a bona fide mystery. It might well make men's 
hearts tremble with fear or swell with rapture, or dilate 
with joy. 

From polytheism, the worship of many gods, to monothe- 
ism, the worship of one, was the next step in the develop- 
ment of the god-idea. Here also the principle, "To him 
that hath shall be given," had, no doubt, great influence. 
The favorite god tended to be the only one, little by little 
crowding the others from their thrones. Different tribes 
had different favorites, and the strongest tribe demanded 
exclusive worship for its deity, and was able to enforce the 
claim. Natural selection operated here as in the physical 
world. There was a struggle for existence, and a preserva- 
tion of the fittest ; the fittest here not necessarily meaning 
the best, but, as often in the physical world, only the 
strongest, the ablest to survive. Midway between polythe- 
ism and monotheism we have monolatry, the exclusive 
worship of one deity without denying the existence of others. 
But gods not worshipped cease to be regarded as realities. 
The god exclusively worshipped tends to be the only god 
to whom existence is allowed. And hence a monotheistic 
god-idea. 

At this stage of development, as at every earlier, it must 
be admitted that there are elements of unreality involved in 
every step of the advance. But here again, as at every 
previous stage, the unreality was in the explanation, not in 
the thing explained. The real object of worship here, as 
before, was the mystery of life behind phenomena. The 
dawning sense of unity in these, the beginning of all science 
and philosophy, suggested the unity of the underlying 
mystery. I grant you that the monotheistic god was at first 
dreadfully anthropomorphic : "a non-natural man," "a man 
of war" ; to the Semite a Bedouin Sheik at first, and then 
a king, — the earthly monarchy always tending to produce 
a heavenly counterpart in human thought. But, again, the 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



113 



noticeable thing is that the real object of awe and wonder 
and worship was not the man-like deity, — that he was not 
reverenced and worshipped for his man-likeness, — but as the 
mysterious Power adequate to produce the world of nature 
and humanity. The man-likeness was a necessity of childish 
thought, of undevelopment, of survival in culture ; but it 
could not successfully impeach the reality of the Mysterious 
Power of which it was the concrete symbol, nor the reality of 
the worship honestly accorded to this Power. 

With the development of monotheism, the god-idea 
reaches its highest point of evolution, except as this idea, 
once generated, is capable of indefinite purification. And 
the most notable feature in this process is the transference 
of man's awe and wonder from the exceptional in his 
experience to the regular and orderly. From the lowest 
fetich-worshipper up to the average Christian monotheist of 
this nineteenth century, the most potent suggestions of 
deity have come from the apparently exceptional and abnor- 
mal. The disposition of the untutored savage to choose for 
his fetich the most grotesque object — tree or stone — that 
he can find is absolutely identical with the disposition of 
the cultured modern Christian to seek for God in some 
miraculous interposition rather than in the invariable order 
of the world, " staring with wonder to see water turned into 
wine, and heedless of the stupendous fact of his own person- 
ality." So pertinacious has been the resolution of the 
religious world to find God only in the apparently abnormal 
and inconsequent, that, by force of association, it came at 
length to be regarded as an axiom that, if God is not a sort 
of " Prince of misrule," then he is nothing. Parallel with 
the development of religion for hundreds of years, there has 
been a development of science. But the tendency of science 
has been to everywhere dissipate the wonder inhering in the 
apparently abnormal and inconsequent by including it in its 
generalizations of law and order. Sure of his axiom, " The 
more law, the less God," the religionist has contemplated 
this process with unqualified dismay. Province after prov- 
ince has been wrested from the domain of personal agency 

15 



ii4 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



and annexed to the domain of law, till it has seemed only a 
question of time whether every vestige of the Deity would 
not finally be expelled from the universe. But while, little 
by little, the old sense of mystery, inhering in the appar- 
ently exceptional and abnormal, has been going out, a new 
sense of mystery, slowly but surely, has been coming in, — a 
sense of mystery inhering in the uniformities of natural phe- 
nomena. The more law, the more God, — the more mystery, 
wonder, awe and trust, — has been the growing conviction 
which has kept pace with this development. "As fast as 
science transfers more and more things from the category 
of irregularities to the category of regularities, the mystery 
that once attached to the superstitious explanation of them 
becomes a mystery attaching to the scientific explanation 
of them ; there is a merging of many special mysteries in 
one general mystery."* "So that," says Herbert Spencer, 
"beginning with the germinal idea of mystery which the 
savage gets from a display of [anomalous] power, . . . and 
the germinal sentiment of awe accompanying it, the progress 
is towards an ultimate recognition of a mystery behind every 
act and appearance, and a transfer of the awe from some- 
thing special and occasional to something universal and 
unceasing " ; which something is the infinite God of sci- 
entific faith. 

If now I have accomplished my purpose, I have made it 
plain that no unreality attaching to the earliest development 
of religion, or to any subsequent stage, has prejudiced the 
value of the god-idea in its present form, or indeed in any 
form it has assumed from the beginning of its long and pain- 
ful march from puerile animism up to the glorious conscious- 
ness of One who, 

be he what he may, 
Is yet the fountain light of all our day, 
Is yet the master-light of all our seeing.! 

This has been proved by showing that, at every stage, a bond- 
fide mystery has been involved in the idea ; and that the real 
object of awe and reverence and worship has been this mys- 

* Spencer's Study of Sociology, p. 310. t Adapted from Wordsworth's " Ode on Immortality.'' 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



US 



tery, and not the explanation of it, varying with every stage 
of culture. 

How then? Do I erect an altar "to the unknown God," 
and bid you come and worship ? I answer Yes and No. 
" Unknown and yet well known " is a Pauline phrase with 
which we may complement the inscription which the apostle 
found on the Athenian altar : Unknown and yet well 
known ! " The Sum of the Unknown " has been suggested 
as the best possible definition of God, a definition which 
neither defines nor confines. Such a definition would inde- 
finitely postpone the advent of atheism ; for, though " the 
sum of the unknown" is being steadily abridged by the 
discoveries of science, there is no immediate danger of its 
■ being wholly conquered and annexed to the domain of 
knowledge. And then, too, while "the sum of the un- 
known " is always growing smaller, it is always growing 
larger to our apprehension. The more we know, the better 
do we realize what realms of mystery still unexplored chal- 
lenge our patience and our courage. But, remote as is the 
possibility, I do not relish the idea that, if we could know 
everything, we could write God's epitaph ; that the increase 
of knowledge is a gradual elimination of the unknown quan- 
tity, God, from the equation of our thought and feeling. 
Moreover, the unknown which has elicited the awe and rev- 
erence of men's hearts has never been a simple negative. It 
has been wonderful to them, and awful and reverent as the 
mysterious background of something known or felt to be so. 
And, with the advance of science, what makes the ever 
vaster amplitude of the unknown so quickening to our awe, 
our gladness, and our trust, is that the little we do know is 
so wonderful, so marvellous ; and we proceed to people all 
the vast unknown with the benignant forms and forces 
which have been openly revealed to us. It is as when I 
stand upon the rocky headlands of my native shore, and look 
out upon that " glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
glasses itself in tempests." 

" Eastward as far as the eye can see, 
Eastward, eastward, endlessly, 
The sparkle and tremor of purple sea." 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Surely what fills me with a joy so keen that it is almost pain 
is not alone the flashing tumult of the great expanse of 
waters : it is also that, beyond where sky and water meet, 
with my mind's eye I see the mighty ocean reaching on and 
on, and beautiful with the same unspeakable beauty as the 
little space that lies within my field of vision. It is the 
beauty of the known that makes the beauty of the unknown 
so sure and so entrancing. And just as surely my soul's 
''normal delight in the infinite God " is not produced by any 
purely negative unknown. No more is it by any positive 
known. No ; but by my warrantable conviction that all the 
infinite unknown is equally with the little territory which I 
know the haunt of nameless beauty, order, symmetry, and law. 
And so to those among us, and they are not few, who are 
endeavoring to convince us that a purely negative mystery, 
an absolute unknown, is adequate to all the functions of a 
God whom we may reverence and adore, I answer in the 
words of England's greatest living theologian : — 

Far be it from us to deal lightly with the sense of mystery. It mingles 
largely with all devout apprehension, and is the great redeeming power that 
purifies the intellect of its egotism and the heart of its pride. But you cannot 
constitute a religion out of mystery alone, any more than out of knowledge 
alone, nor can you measure the relation of doctrines to humility and piety by 
the mere amount of conscious darkness that they leave. All worship, being- 
directed to what is above vis and transcends our comprehension, stands in the 
presence of a mystery. But not all that stands before a mystery is worship. 
The abyss must not be one of total gloom — of neutral possibilities — of hidden 
glories or hidden horrors, we know not which. . . . Such a pit of indeterminate 
contingencies will bend no head, and melt no eye that may turn to it. Some 
rays of clear light must escape from it, some visions of solemn beauty gleam 
within it, ere the darkness itself can be "visible" enough to deliver its awfulness 
upon the soul. ... To fling us into bottomless negation is to drown us in 
mystery and leave us dead. True reverence can breathe and see, only on con- 
dition of some alternation of light and darkness, of inner silence and a stir of 
"upper air." 

Nor is there any thing in the necessities of the most rigid 
scientific thought which violates this condition, which pre- 
cludes this happy alternation. " Though unknown, yet well 
known." Is he not this, — the god of scientific apprehen- 
sion ? In any scientific sense, it must be granted that in 
himself he is unknown, unknowable, and must remain so 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



117 



always. But until I can know some one thing in the uni- 
verse in itself, be that thing clod of earth or soul of man, I 
will not fret because I cannot know in itself the Infinite and 
Everlasting One. For what does my ignorance signify but 
that an unmanifested infinite can never be found out, that 
an everlasting silence would be totally inaudible. "Vapid 
words," we say with Martineau, "in a universe full of 
visions and of voices." 

Meanwhile, though I acknowledge, unreservedly, that the 
unspeakable majesty is in itself unknown, I insist that our 
ignorance should not, cannot be interpreted as describing- 
absolute nonentity of perception and apprehension. Our 
very ignorance affirms the existence of an incomprehensible 
substance of which the phenomenal universe is the perpetual 
manifestation. Our knowledge of God is of exactly the same 
nature as our knowledge of our neighbors and ourselves. 
We know him by the manifestations of his inscrutable life. 
If we are not so garrulous as men were formerly about his 
attributes, we know a great deal more about his laws, the 
habits of his infinite life. What he determined in the most 
secret counsels of the Trinity before the beginning of time, 
the Calvins and the Edwardses have sufficiently discussed ; 
and all who care for their results are welcome to embrace 
them. What we are sure of is that the unseen power was 
adequate to the production of this universe, such as it is. 
He has put himself into his world as painters sometimes put 
themselves into their pictures ; not by painting himself, like 
Raphael, in a corner, but by expressing his stupendous 
energy in every part. As much as we know of the uni- 
verse, so much we know of God. Truly it is not much in 
comparison with what we do not know. " Lo, these are 
parts of his ways, but how little is yet known of him." And 
yet, though relatively little, absolutely much, and more with 
every new discovery of any fact or law. Now, indeed, for 
the first time Theology makes good her boast, Scientia 
scientiarum, the science of sciences ; but not in the old sense 
of being superior to all others; rather in the sense of includ- 
ing all others. Henceforth all other sciences are fragments 



ii8 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



of theology ; for all of them are busy with the manifesta- 
tions of the one eternal substance in which all phenomena 
inhere. 

Modern science is unitarian, monotheistic, as never was 
the creed of Moses or Mohammed. She teaches us that all 
these nerves whose play upon the surface of the universe 
irradiate it with such various expression go back into one 
central ganglion, and evermore report its perfect sanity. 
From all the peaks, from all the depths and heights, the 
different forms and forces of the world are signalling across 
to one another with fraternal salutations. A thousand and 
ten thousand various lines of force run back into one central 
stream whose ceaseless energy supplies them all. What was 
the wonder of that old homoousion, one substance of the Son 
and Father, a barren abstraction, to this homoio.nsion, like 
substance of all worlds, which modern astronomy has 
proved ? From every quarter comes the news of this same 
unity and sympathy and harmony in the make of things. 
"It thunders all around." A universal solidarity bespeaks 
a central and abiding oneness at the heart of things. 

" That one face does not vanish ; rather grows ; 
Or decomposes but to recompose, 
Become my universe that feels and knows." 

But does it feel and know ? Whether the infinite power, 
the infinite life, the infinite One, is personal or impersonal, 
is one of the questions about which those who are least 
qualified to speak are generally the most voluble. Can any 
one of them tell us what personality is ? And, till they can, 
what right have they to say, "God cannot be a person," or 
"A god who is not personal is no god at all." The first use 
of this word "person" was to designate one personating, 
sounding through a mask the dramatic situations of some 
poet's verse. And as in the great amphitheatre at Athens 
the person and poet were sometimes the same, — even 
Sophocles speaking from behind the mask his own majestic 
words, — so always in this amphitheatre whose circle is the 
circle of the universe, whose "centre is everywhere, whose 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



II 9 



circumference nowhere," the person and the poet are one : 
it is his own poem, neither tragedy nor comedy, but an epic 
which includes them both, and many a lyric passage of 
sweetness unimaginable till heard, that the Infinite recites, 
less, it may be, for our delight, than because irresistibly 
self-stirred to self-expression. But, I am well aware, the 
sticklers for personality will not be put off with any such 
metaphor as this. If only we could all agree upon the 
meaning of personality, there might be less divergence in 
our thought than there is now. With some, a person is an 
individual, a local deity. Such expect to see God when they 
die, and to recognize him by his resemblance to the conven- 
tional portraiture of Jesus, unaware that this is based upon 
an antique bust of Plato, which for a long time was supposed 
to be a bust of Christ. Many who declare that they do not 
believe in a personal god mean little more than that they 
do not believe in any such individual god as this, in any 
localized deity. But many who insist that God is personal 
are far enough from this pathetic puerility. What they 
mean by personality is conscious mind, or simply mind. 
The new psychology is making it a little easier for us to 
conceive of personality, in this sense, as universally diffused. 
It refuses to locate the thinking apparatus solely in the 
brain. Rather every part of us seems to think, or, at least, 
to be concerned in thinking. 

" Her pure and eloquent blood 
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought 
That one might almost say her body thought." 

So it becomes a little easier to conceive of infinite mind, 
of infinite thought and will, not here or there, but all-pervad- 
ing, as logically but not locally central, as they are with 
us. In this sense, shall we then say that God is personal ? 
or shall we rather say that mind and thought and will and 
love, all personal words, are the least inadequate symbols 
that we have, or can have, of the Infinite Power, and try, 
always, to remember that they are symbols, not exact expres- 
sions for that which cannot be expressed? " God's thoughts 



120 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



are not our thoughts ; neither are his ways our ways." 
That is a real prophetic word, — prophetic of our wisest 
modern thought. Only let us not forget what follows : " For 
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his thoughts 
higher than our thoughts, and his ways than our ways." 
There are those who seem to think that to deny personality 
to God is to assert that he is something less than personal. 
And with the materialist, if there be any such, who really 
imagines that out of mere dead matter, without any God- 
like energy behind it, came this sublime and awful universe, 
the denial of personality to God may be to affirm that he is 
something less than personal. But this sort of a materialist 
is hard to find. He has only a verbal existence. My friend 
assures me we are looking up over our heads for an explana- 
tion which we should look for down under our feet. But no. 
If matter is the ultimate reality, then matter is not down under 
our feet, but up over our heads. The less does not produce 
the greater. There is an infinite element involved in every 
step of evolution. The ascending series can be accounted 
for only by supposing a higher than its highest, antecedent 
to its lowest term. But to deny personality to God is not 
necessarily to affirm that he is something less than personal. 
It may be to affirm that he is infinitely more. There are 
those who think the Infinite altogether such a one as them- 
selves, as Caliban his "dam's god, Setebos " ; and such 
regard with pity and contempt, because they cannot say that 
God is personal, men who have each one of them religion 
enough to set up a whole army of their assailants. But 
there are those who cannot say that God is personal, because 
they dare not apply to the Eternal the limitations of our 
human personality. Not because they conceive of God as 
less than personal, but because they conceive of him as infi- 
nitely more, do they decline to call him so. If they were 
sure their words would be accepted as symbolical, then they 
might say, as I do, that personality is a far better symbol 
than impersonality of the inexpressible fact. But I should 
do injustice to those who contend most wisely and acutely 
for the idea of infinite personality, if I did not make haste 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



121 



to say that it is possible for these as well as for their oppo- 
nents to affirm that God is more than personal. To affirm 
personality is not necessarily to affirm that this designation 
is exhaustive of the fulness of the infinite life. It is only 
to affirm that there are manifestations of this life which 
compel this designation, in the absence of a better. There 
may at the same time be other manifestations, incalculably 
vast, which demand either a different designation or that 
silence which is golden. This should not be forgotten. It 
is too often by those who refuse to speak of God as personal 
because he is to them more than personal. He may be 
more than personal to those who affirm his personality with 
the utmost confidence. 

The idea of consciousness as included in the idea of 
personality is often felt, on the one hand, to be the greatest 
stumbling-block, and, on the other, the most absolute desid- 
eratum. In the latter case, is not the tendency conspicuous 
to make God " altogether such an one as ourselves " ? Yet 
though I do not see that the alternative of consciousness is 
"a blind force," that bugbear of the popular theology, one 
thing, at least, is certain, — that the non-ability to scientifi- 
cally discover consciousness in the universe is no sign it is 
not there, nor even a hint that it is not. We are so sure of 
nothing else as of our own consciousness, and yet what 
scientific evidence have we of its existence? Not a particle. 
The saying of Lawrence, that his scalpel found no soul in 
the brain, has been thought by would-be atheists a confirma- 
tion of Laplace's saying, that his telescope, scanning the 
whole heavens, found no trace of God. In fact, it negatives 
it altogether. If the scalpel had found a soul, we might 
perhaps expect the telescope to find a God. The fact that 
it has not, while still we know that it exists, establishes a 
vast presumption in favor of a universal mind. But if an 
infinite mind, says Du Bois-Reymond, then too an infinite 
brain. Well, one of the atomic philosophers has said that, 
if we could see the dance of atoms, it would be not unlike 
the dance of constellations. Whereupon Mr. Martineau 
turns round upon Reymond, and says : "If the structure 

16 



122 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



and movement of atoms do but repeat in little those of the 
heavens, what hinders us from inverting the analogy, and 
saying that the ordered heavens repeat the rhythm of the 
cerebral particles ? You need an embodied mind ? Lift up 
your eyes and look upon the arch of night as the brow 
of the Eternal, its constellations as the molecules of the 
universal consciousness and its ethereal waves as media of 
omniscient thought." As an argnmentum ad hominem, this 
could not be better ; but Mr. Martineau knows as well as 
anybody that, once sure of such a cosmic brain, the philoso- 
phers would immediately attribute it to "some cosmic 
megatherium," not to the great first cause. Doubtless, if 
this is conscious, its consciousness, like gravitation, reports 
itself at every point, and is not central, but ubiquitous. 
Enough that infinite consciousness can never be disproved, 
and that, if there be no such consciousness, then there is 
something better ; for this I hold to be self-evident, that no 
idea of the infinite can emerge in us more perfect than it 
actually is, because the less cannot produce a greater than 
itself in thought or fact. 

If it could be generally understood that the language of 
religion is not scientific, but poetical, we might freely make 
use of various expressions which now it seems almost our 
duty to avoid : we might, for example, speak of the creation 
of the world, and of God as the Creator, as naturally as we 
now speak of the sun's rising and setting, although we know 
our words entirely fail to represent the fact. " In the begin- 
ning, God created the heavens and the earth." Then the 
beginning is not over yet, for he is still at work upon his 
world. The old doctrine of creation pictured an eternal 
being, dwelling in loneliness until about six thousand years 
ago, when suddenly he awoke and became active, created 
matter out of nothing, and the universe out of matter, and 
then relapsed again into quiescence. Harried by geologist 
and astronomer, the expounders of this scheme agreed to 
interpret liberally the six days of creation, and put back the 
beginning to some infinitely distant past. But no such con- 
cession can relieve the scheme of its essential incoherence 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



1^3 



and absurdity. Philosophy opposes its incorrigible ex nihilo 
nihil, — nothing from nothing; and science brings a thou- 
sand arguments to prove the indestructibility and conse- 
quent eternity of matter. The conception of matter as a 
"datum objective to God," a finite substance lying over 
against his infinite, is inconceivably absurd. It but remains 
for us to consider the material universe as in no sense 
foreign to God. 

" All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." 

If this is Pantheism, it is no worse for being so. For, in 
one form or another, Pantheism has always been the doctrine 
of the most religious souls. The idea of a mechanical Cre- 
ator coalesces at no single point with this conception. He 
was supposed to be outside the universe, working upon it 
like a watchmaker at work upon a watch. But the watch 
proves to be so big that there is no room outside of it, no 
outer darkness. "This thing was not done in a corner." 

" God dwells in all, and moves the world, and moulds, 
Himself and Nature in one form enfolds." 

This is the new doctrine of creation. Only it is not 
creation. It is evolution. God is no builder, no architect, 
no infinite mechanician. A rose upon its stem in June is a 
more adequate symbol of his unfolding life than any Chris- 
topher Wren or Michel Angelo. From within outwards, 
not from without inwards, is the procession of the Holy 
Spirit. 

" The flower horizons open, 
The blossom vaster shows, 
We hear the wide worlds echo, 
' See how the lily grows ! ' " 

Friends, I have kept you long ; and still there are a hun- 
dred things to say. But they will keep against another time 
and for a better man. The one thing I have tried to do this 
morning is to clear the god-idea of that appearance of un- 
reality which attaches to its earliest forms ; to show you that 
at every step the unreality inhered not in the essence, but in 
the accidents of the idea ; to show you that, as it has come 



124 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



down to us, it is no mere survival of an ancient superstition, 
but the legitimate product of men's enraptured recognition 
of the mysterious Power which manifests itself in all the 
marvellous uniformities of universal nature and life. Further 
than this, I have endeavored to turn a ray of light on some 
of the more prominent questions which are engaging the at- 
tention of the most thoughtful persons of our time ; to show 
you that a purely negative mystery is by no means equal to 
the proper function of the god-idea, that it can rightfully 
demand no reverence, inspire no sacred awe, beget no holy 
trust ; and, finally, to suggest that even such shibboleths as 
"personality" and "creation" can be pronounced sibboleth, 
or remain quite unspoken, and the protesting mind still enter- 
tain the god-idea in a more worthy form than that of its con- 
ventional exponents. But, after all that has been said, how 
infinitesimal it seems in contrast with the supreme idea it 
has sought to honor. O God, we thank thee that our joy 
and peace and satisfaction and delight in thee are not 
dependent on our ability to speak of thee aright ; that 
deeper than all speech, all thought, the sense abides in us 
of thy ineffable mystery, thy glorious power, thy steadfast 
law, thine everlasting faithfulness, thy constant presence, 
and thy perfect love ! 

" Thy voice is on the rolling air, 

I hear thee where the waters run, 
Thou standest in the rising sun, 
And in the setting thou art fair. 

" What art thou, then ? I cannot guess ; 
But, though I seem in star and flower 
To feel the same diffusive power, 
I do not therefore love thee less. 

" Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; 
I have thee still, and I rejoice ; 
I prosper, circled by thy voice ; 
I shall not lose thee, though I die." 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL s 

EXTERNAL EVIDENCES. 

By Prof. EZRA ABBOT, Harvard University. 

The problem of the Fourth Gospel — that is, the question of 
its authorship and historical value — requires for its complete 
solution a consideration of many collateral questions which 
are still in debate. Until these are gradually disposed of by 
thorough investigation and discussion, we can hardly hope 
for a genera] agreement on the main question at issue. 
Such an agreement among scholars certainly does not at 
present exist. Since the " epoch-making " essay (to borrow 
a favorite phrase of the Germans) of Ferdinand Christian 
Baur, in the Theologische Jahrbucher for 1844, there has 
indeed been much shifting of ground on the part of the 
opponents of the genuineness of the Gospel ; but among schol- 
ars of equal learning and ability, as Hilgenfeld, Keim, Schol- 
ten, Hausrath, Renan, on the one hand, and Godet, Beyschlag, 
Luthardt, Weiss, Lightfoot, on the other, opinions are yet 
divided, with a tendency, at least in Germany, toward the 
denial of its genuineness. Still, some of these collateral 
questions of which I have spoken seem to be approaching a 
settlement. I may notice first one of the most important, 
the question whether the relation of the Apostle John to 
Jewish Christianity was not such that it is impossible to 
suppose the Fourth Gospel to have proceeded from him, 
even at a late period of his life. This is a fundamental 
postulate of the theory of the Tubingen School, in regard to 



* Read, in part, before the " Ministers' Institute," at Providence, R.I., Oct. 23, 1879. 



126 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



the opposition of Paul to the three great Apostles, Peter, 
James, and John. The Apostle John, they say, wrote the 
Apocalypse, the most Jewish of all the books of the New 
Testament ; but he could not have written the anti-Judaic 
Gospel. Recognizing most fully the great service which 
Baur and his followers have rendered to the history of primi- 
tive Christianity by their bold and searching investigations, 
I think it may be said that there is a wide-spread and deep- 
ening conviction among fair-minded scholars that the theory 
of the Tiibingen School, in the form in which it has been 
presented by the coryphaei of the party, as Baur, Schwegler, 
Zeller, is an extreme view, resting largely on a false interpre- 
tation of many passages of the New Testament, and a false 
view of many early Christian writings. Matthew Arnold's 
protest against the excessive "vigour and rigour" of the 
Tubingen theories brings a good deal of plain English com- 
mon-sense to bear on the subject, and exposes well some of 
the extravagances of Baur and others.* Still more weight is 
to be attached to the emphatic dissent of such an able and 
thoroughly independent scholar as Dr. James Donaldson, the 
author of the Critical History of Christian Literature and 
Doctrine, a work unhappily unfinished. But very significant 
is the remarkable article of Keim on the Apostolic Council 
at Jerusalem, in his latest work, Aus dem Urchristenthum 
("Studies in the History of Early Christianity "), published 
in 1878, a short time before his lamented death. In this 
able essay, he demolishes the foundation of the Tubingen 
theory, vindicating in the main the historical character of 
the account in the Acts, and exposing the misinterpretation 
of the passage in the Epistle to the Galatians, on which Baur 
and his followers found their view of the absolute contradic- 
tion between the Acts and the Epistle. Holtzmann, Lipsius, 
Pfleiderer, and especially Weizsacker had already gone far in 
modifying the extreme view of Baur; but this essay of Keim's 
is a re-examination of the whole question with reference to 
all the recent discussions. The still later work of Schenkel, 



* See his God and the Bible, Preface, and chaps, v., vi. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 12/ 



published during the present year (1879), D as Christusbild 
der Apostel und der nackapostolischen Zeit (" The Picture of 
Christ presented by the Apostles and by the Post-Apostolic 
Time"), is another conspicuous example of the same reac- 
tion. Schenkel remarks in the Preface to this volume : — 

Having never been able to convince myself of the sheer opposition 
between Petrinism and Paulinism, it has also never been possible for me 
to get a credible conception of a reconciliation effected by means of a 
literature sailing between the contending parties under false colors. 
In respect to the Acts of the Apostles, in particular, I have been led in 
part to different results from those represented by the modern critical 
school. I have been forced to the conviction that it is a far more trust- 
worthy source of information than is commonly allowed on the part of 
the modern criticism ; that older documents worthy of credit, besides 
the well-known W^-source, are contained in it ; and that the Paulinist 
who composed it has not intentionally distorted (entstellf) the facts, but 
only placed them in the light in which they appeared to him and must 
have appeared to him from the time and circumstances under which he 
wrote. He has not, in my opinion, artificially brought upon the stage 
either a Paulinized Peter, or a Petrinized Paul, in order to mislead his 
readers, but has portrayed the two apostles just as he actually conceived 
of them on the basis of his incomplete information. (Preface, pp. x., xi.) 

It would be hard to find two writers more thoroughly inde- 
pendent, whatever else may be said of them, than Keim and 
Schenkel. Considering their well-known position, they will 
hardly be stigmatized as "apologists" in the contemptuous 
sense in which that term is used by some recent writers, who 
seem to imagine that they display their freedom from par- 
tisan bias by giving their opponents bad names. On this 
subject of the one-sidedness of the Tubingen School, I might 
also refer to the very valuable remarks of Professor Fisher 
in his recent work on The Beginnings of Christianity, and 
in his earlier volume on The Supernatural Origin of Chris- 
tianity. One of the ablest discussions of the question will 
also be found in the Essay on " St. Paul and the Three," 
appended to the commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, 
by Professor Lightfoot, now Bishop of Durham, a scholar who 
has no superior among the Germans in breadth of learning 
and thoroughness of research, The dissertation of Professor 



128 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Jowett on "St. Paul and the Twelve," though not very defi- 
nite in its conclusions, also deserves perusal.* 

In regard to this collateral question, then, I conceive that 
decided progress has been made in a direction favorable to 
the possibility (to put it mildly) of the Johannean authorship 
of the Fourth Gospel. We do not know anything concern- 
ing the theological position of the Apostle John, which justi- 
fies us in assuming that twenty years after the destruction of 
Jerusalem he could not have written such a work. 

Another of these collateral questions, on which a vast 
amount has been written, and on which very confident and 
very untenable assertions have been made, may now, I 
believe, be regarded as set at rest, so far as concerns our 
present subject, the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. I 
refer to the history of the Paschal controversies of the 
second century. The thorough discussion of this subject by 
Schiirer, formerly Professor Extraordinarius at Leipzig, and 
now Professor at Giessen, the editor of the Theologische 
Literaturzeitung, and author of the excellent Neutestament- 
liche Zeitgeschichte, has clearly shown, I believe, that no 
argument against the Johannean authorship of the Fourth 
Gospel can be drawn from the entangled history of these 
controversies. His essay, in which the whole previous litera- 
ture of the subject is carefully reviewed, and all the original 
sources critically examined, was published in Latin at 
Leipzig in 1869 under the title De Controversiis Paschalibus 
secundo post Christum natum Saeculo exortis, and afterwards 
in a German translation in Kahnis's Zeitschrift fur die 
historische Theologie for 1870, pp. 182-284. There is, accord- 
ing to him, absolutely no evidence that the Apostle John 
celebrated Easter with the Ouartodecimans on the 14th of 
Nisan in commemoration, as is so often assumed, of the day 
of the Lord's Supper. The choice of the day had no reference 

* In his work on The Epistles of St. Paul to tJie Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans, 2d ed. 
(London, 1S59), i. 417-477; reprinted in a less complete form from the first edition in Noyes's 
Theol. Essays (1S56), p. 357 ff. The very judicious remarks of Mr. Norton on the difference 
between Paul and the other Apostles, and between the Jewish and Gentile Christians, in his article 
on the "Authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews," in the Christian Examiner for May, 1S29, 
VQli yj. p. 200 ff., are still worth reading, 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 29 

to that event, nor on the other hand, as Weitzel and Steitz 
maintain, to the supposed day of Christ's death, but was 
determined by the fact that the 14th was the day of the 
Jewish Passover, for which the Christian festival was substi- 
tuted. The celebration was Christian, but the day adopted 
by John and the Christians of Asia Minor generally was the 
day of the Jewish Passover, the 14th of Nisan, on whatever 
day of the week it might fall, while the Western Christians 
generally, without regard to the day of the month, celebrated 
Easter on Sunday, in commemoration of the day of the 
resurrection. This is the view essentially of Liicke, Gieseler, 
Bleek, De Wette, Hase, and Riggenbach, with differences on 
subordinate points ; but Schiirer has made the case clearer 
than any other writer. Schiirer is remarkable among Ger- 
man scholars for a calm, judicial spirit, and for thoroughness 
of investigation; and his judgment in this matter is the 
more worthy of regard, as he does not receive the Gospel of 
John as genuine. A good exposition of the subject, founded 
on Schiirer's discussion, may be found in Luthardt's work on 
the Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, of which an English 
translation has been published, with an Appendix by Dr. 
Gregory of Leipzig, giving the literature of the whole con- 
troversy on the authorship of the Gospel far more completely 
than it has ever before been presented. 

Another point may be mentioned, as to which there has 
come to be a general agreement ; namely, that the very late 
date assigned to the Gospel by Baur and Schwegler, 
namely, somewhere between the years 160 and 170 a.d., 
cannot be maintained. Zeller and Scholten retreat to 150; 
Hilgenfeld, who is at last constrained to admit its use by 
Justin Martyr, goes back to between 130 and 140 ; Renan 
now says 125 or 130 ; Keim in the first volume of his History 
of Jesus of Nazara placed it with great confidence between 
the years no and 115, or more loosely, a.d. 1 00-117.* The 
fatal consequences of such an admission as that were, how- 
ever, soon perceived ; and in the last volume of his History 



* Geschichte Jesti von Nazara, i. 155, comp. 146 (Eng. trans, i, 211, comp. 199). 

17 



130 INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

of Jesus, and in the last edition of his abridgment of that 
work, he goes back to the year 130.* Schenkel assigns it 
to a.d. 1 15-120. f 

This enforced shifting of the date of the Gospel to the 
earlier part of the second century (which I may remark inci- 
dentally is fatal to the theory that its author borrowed from 
Justin Martyr instead of Justin from John) at once pre- 
sents very serious difficulties on the supposition of the 
spuriousness of the Gospel. It is the uniform tradition, 
supported by great weight of testimony, that the Evangelist 
John lived to a very advanced age, spending the latter por- 
tion of his life in Asia Minor, and dying there in the reign of 
Trajan, not far from a.d. 100. How could a spurious Gos- 
pel of a character so peculiar, so different from the earlier 
Synoptic Gospels, so utterly unhistorical as it is affirmed to 
be, gain currency as the work of the Apostle both among 
Christians and the Gnostic heretics, if it originated only 
twenty-five or thirty years after his death, when so many 
who must have known whether he wrote such a work or not 
were still living ? 

The feeling of this difficulty seems to have revived the 
theory, put forward, to be sure, as long ago as 1840 by a 
very wild German writer, Liitzelberger, but which Baur and 
Strauss deemed unworthy of notice, that the Apostle John 
was never in Asia Minor at all. This view has recently 
found strenuous advocates in Keim, Scholten, and others, 
though it is rejected and, I believe, fully refuted by critics 
of the same school, as Hilgenfeld. The historical evidence 
against it seems to me decisive ; and to attempt to support 
it, as Scholten does, by purely arbitrary conjectures, such as 
the denial of the genuineness of the letter of Irenaeus to 
Florinus, can only give one the impression that the writer 
has a desperate cause. :•: 

* Geschichte Jesu . . .fur wetter e Kreise, 3 e Bearbeitung, 2^ Aufl. (1875), p. 40. 
t Das Charakterbild Jes?i, 4^ Aufl. (1873), p. 370. 

X See Hilgenfeld, Hist. Krtt. Einleitung in d. N. T. (1875), p. 394 ; Bleek, Einl. in d. 
N. T., 2 e Aufl. (1875), p. 167 ff., with Mangold's note; Fisher, The Beginnings of Christianity 
(1877), p. 327 ff. Compare Renan, V ' Antechrist, p. 557 ff, 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 131 

Thus far we have noticed a few points connected with the 
controversy about the authorship of the Fourth Gospel in 
respect to which some progress may seem to have been made 
since the time of Baur. Others will be remarked upon inci- 
dentally, as we proceed. But to survey the whole field of 
discussion in an hour's discourse is impossible. To treat the 
question of the historical evidence with any thoroughness 
would require a volume ; to discuss the internal character of 
the Gospel in its bearings on the question of its genuineness 
and historical value would require a much larger one. All 
therefore which I shall now attempt will be to consider some 
points of the historical evidence for the genuineness of the 
Fourth Gospel, as follows: — 

1. The general reception of the Four Gospels as genuine 
among Christians in the last quarter of the second century. 

2. The question respecting the inclusion of the Fourth 
Gospel in the Apostolical Memoirs of Christ appealed to by 
Justin Martyr. 

3. Its use by the various Gnostic sects. 

4. The attestation to this Gospel which has come down 
to us appended to the book itself. 

I begin with the statement, which cannot be questioned, 
that our present four Gospels, and no others, were received 
by the great body of Christians as genuine and sacred books 
during the last quarter of the second century. This appears 
most clearly from the writings of Irenaeus, born not far from 
a.d. 125-130, whose youth was spent in Asia Minor, and who 
became Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, a.d. 178; of Clement, the 
head of the Catechetical School at Alexandria about the year 
190, who had travelled in Greece, Italy, Syria, and Pales- 
tine, seeking religious instruction ; and of Tertullian, in 
North Africa, who flourished toward the close of the century. 
The four Gospels are found in the ancient Syriac version of 
the New Testament, the Peshito, made in the second century, 
the authority of which has the more weight as it omits the 
Second and Third Epistles of John, Second Peter, Jude, and 
the Apocalypse, books whose authorship was disputed in the 
early Church. Their existence in the Old Latin version also 



132 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



attests their currency in North Africa, where that version 
originated some time in the second century. They appear, 
moreover, in the Muratorian Canon, written probably about 
a.d. 170, the oldest list of canonical books which has come 
down to us. 

Mr. Norton in his work on the Genuineness of the Gospels 
argues with great force that, when we take into considera- 
tion the peculiar character of the Gospels, and the character 
and circumstances of the community by which they were 
received, the fact of their universal reception at this period 
admits of no reasonable explanation except on the supposi- 
tion that they are genuine. I do not here contend for so 
broad an inference : I only maintain that this fact proves 
that our four Gospels could not have originated at this 
period, but must have been in existence long before ; and 
that some very powerful causes must have been at work to 
effect their universal reception. I shall not recapitulate 
Mr. Norton's arguments ; but I would call attention to one 
point on which he justly lays great stress, though it is often 
overlooked ; namely, that the main evidence for the genuine- 
ness of the Gospels is of an altogether different kind from 
that which can be adduced for the genuineness of any classi- 
cal work. It is not the testimony of a few eminent Christian 
writers to their private opinion, but it is the evidence which 
they afford of the belief of the whole body of Christians; and 
this, not in respect to ordinary books, whose titles they 
might easily take on trust, but respecting books in which 
they were most deeply interested ; books which were the 
very foundation of that faith which separated them from the 
world around them, exposed them to hatred, scorn, and per- 
secution, and often demanded the sacrifice of life itself. 

I would add that the greater the differences between the 
Gospels, real or apparent, the more difficult it must have 
been for them to gain this universal reception, except on the 
supposition that they had been handed down from the begin- 
ning as genuine. This remark applies particularly to the 
Fourth Gospel when compared with the first three. 

The remains of Christian literature in the first three quar- 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 33 

ters of the second century are scanty, and are of such a char- 
acter that, assuming the genuineness of the Gospels, we have 
really no reason to expect more definite references to their 
writers, and more numerous quotations from or allusions to 
them than we actually do find or seem to find. A few letters, 
as the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, now 
made complete by the discovery of a new MS. and of a Syriac 
version of it ; the Epistle ascribed to Barnabas, now complete 
in the original; the short Epistle of Polycarp to the Philip- 
pians, and the Epistles (of very doubtful genuineness) attrib- 
uted to Ignatius; an allegorical work, the Shepherd of Her- 
mas, which nowhere quotes either the Old Testament or the 
New ; a curious romance, the Clementine Homilies ; and the 
writings of the Christian Apologists, Justin Martyr, Tatian, 
Theophilus, Athenagoras, Hermias, who, in addressing- 
heathens, could not be expected to talk about Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John, which would be to them names 
without significance, — these few documents constitute 
nearly all the literature of the period. As we should not 
expect the Gospels to be quoted by name in the writings of 
the Apologists, though we do find John expressly mentioned 
by Theophilus, so in such a discussion as that of Justin 
Martyr with Trypho the Jew, Justin could not cite in direct 
proof of his doctrines works the authority of which the Jew 
would not recognize, though he might use them, as he does, 
in attestation of historic facts which he regarded as fulfilling 
prophecies of the Old Testament. 

The author of Supernatural Religion, in discussing the 
evidence of the use of our present Gospels in the first three 
quarters of the second century, proceeds on two assumptions : 
one, that in the first half of this century vast numbers of 
spurious Gospels and other writings bearing the names of 
Apostles and their followers were in circulation in the early 
Church ; and the other, that we have a right to expect 
great accuracy of quotation from the Christian Fathers, 
especially when they introduce the words of Christ with 
such a formula as "he said" or " he taught." Now this 
last assumption admits of being thoroughly tested, and it 



134 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



contradicts the most unquestionable facts. Instead of such 
accuracy of quotation as is assumed as the basis of his 
argument, it is beyond all dispute that the Fathers often 
quote very loosely, from memory, abridging, transposing, 
paraphrasing, amplifying, substituting synonymous words or 
equivalent expressions, combining different passages together, 
and occasionally mingling their own inferences with their 
citations. In regard to the first assumption, a careful sifting 
of the evidence will show, I believe, that there is really no 
proof thdX in the time of Justin Martyr (with the possible 
exception of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which in 
its primitive form may have been the Hebrew original from 
which our present Greek Gospel ascribed to Matthew was 
mainly derived) there was a single work, bearing the title of 
a Gospel, which as a history of Christ's ministry came into 
competition with our present four Gospels, or which took 
the place among Christians which our Gospels certainly held 
in the last quarter of the second century. Much confusion 
has arisen from the fact that the term "Gospel" was in 
ancient times applied to speculative works which gave the 
writer's view of the Gospel, i.e., of the doctrine of Christ, or 
among the Gnostics, which set forth their gnosis ; e.g., among 
the followers of Basilides, Hippolytus tells us, " the Gospel " 
is % rc)v vTrepKOGfjiLuv yvuui£, " the knowledge of supermundane 
things" (Adv. Hcer. vii. 27). Again, the apocryphal Gos- 
pels of the Nativity and the Infancy, or such works as the 
so-called Gospel of Nicodemus, describing the descent of 
Christ into Hades, have given popular currency to the idea 
that there were floating about in the middle of the second 
century a great number of Gospels, rival histories of Christ's 
ministry; which these apocryphal Gospels, however, are not 
and do not pretend to be. Other sources of confusion, as 
the blunders of writers like Epiphanius, I pass over. To 
enter into a discussion and elucidation of this subject here 
is of course impossible : I will only recommend the read- 
ing of Mr. Norton's full examination of it in the third vol- 
ume of his Genuineness of the Gospels, which needs, to be 
sure, a little supplementing, but the main positions of 
which I believe to be impregnable. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 35 

Resting on these untenable assumptions, the author of 
Supernatural Religion subjects this early fragmentary litera- 
ture to a minute examination, and explains away what seem 
to be quotations from or references to our present Gospels 
in these different works as borrowed from some of the multi- 
tudinous Gospels which he assumes to have been current 
among the early Christians, especially if these quotations 
and references do not present a perfect verbal correspond- 
ence with our present Gospels, as is the case with the great 
majority of them. Even if the correspondence is verbally 
exact, this proves nothing, in his view ; for the quotations of 
the words of Jesus might be borrowed from other current 
Gospels which resembled ours as much as Matthew, Mark, 
and Luke resemble each other. But, if the verbal agreement 
is not exact, we have in his judgment a strong proof that the 
quotations are derived from some apocryphal book. So he 
comes to the conclusion that there is no certain trace of the 
existence of our present Gospels for about one hundred and 
fifty years after the death of Christ ; i.e., we will say, till about 
a.d. 180. 

But here a question naturally arises : How is it, if no trace 
of their existence is previously discoverable, that our four 
Gospels are suddenly found toward the end of the second 
century to be received as sacred books throughout the whole 
Christian world ? His reply is, " It is totally unnecessary for 
me to account for this."* He stops his investigation of the 
subject just at the point where we have solid facts, not con- 
jectures, to build upon. When he comes out of the twilight 
into the full blaze of day, he shuts his eyes, and refuses to 
see anything. Such a procedure cannot be satisfactory to a 
sincere inquirer after the truth. The fallacy of this mode of 
reasoning is so well illustrated by Mr. Norton, that I must 
quote a few sentences. He says : — 

About the end of the second century the Gospels were reverenced as 
sacred books by a community dispersed over the world, composed of 
men of different nations and languages. There were, to say the least, 
sixty thousand copies of them in existence ; they were read in the 



* Supernatural Religion, 6th edition (1875), and 7th edition (1879), vol, i. p, ix, (Preface.) 



136 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



churches of Christians ; they were continually quoted, and appealed to, 
as of the highest authority ; their reputation was as well established 
among believers from one end of the Christian community to the other, 
as it is at the present day among Christians in any country. But it is 
asserted that before that period we find no trace of their existence ; and 
it is, therefore, inferred that they were not in common use, and but little 
known, even if extant in their present form. This reasoning is of the 
same kind as if one were to say that the first mention of Egyptian 
Thebes is in the time of Homer. He, indeed, describes it as a city 
which poured a hundred armies from its hundred gates ; but his is the 
first mention of it, and therefore we have no reason to suppose that, 
before his time, it was a place of any considerable note.* 

As regards the general reception of the four Gospels in 
the last quarter of the second century, however, a slight 
qualification is to be made. Some time in the latter half of 
the second, century, the genuineness of the Gospel of John 
was denied by a few eccentric individuals (we have no 
ground for supposing that they formed a sect), whom Epiph- 
anius (Hcer. li., comp. liv.) calls Alogi (\\Aoyoi), a nickname 
which has the double meaning of "deniers of the doctrine of 
the Logos," and " men without reason." They are probably 
the same persons as those of whom Irenasus speaks in one 
passage {Hcer. iii. n. § 9), but to whom he gives no name. 
But the fact that their difficulty with the Gospel was a 
doctrinal one, and that they appealed to no tradition in favor 
of their view ; that they denied the Johannean authorship of 
the Apocalypse likewise, and absurdly ascribed both books 
to Cerinthus, who, unless all our information about him is 
false, could not possibly have written the Fourth Gospel, 
shows that they were persons of no critical judgment. Zeller 
admits {Theol. Jahrb. 1845, p. 645) that their opposition does 
not prove that the Gospel was not generally regarded in 
their time as of Apostolic origin. The fact that they 
ascribed the Fourth Gospel to Cerinthus, a heretic of the 
first century, contemporary with the Apostle John, shows 
that they could not pretend that this Gospel was a recent 
work. 

Further, while the Gnostics generally agreed with the 



* Evidences of the Qentfineness of the Gospels , second edition, vol. i. pp. 195, 196. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 37 

Catholic Christians in receiving the four Gospels, and espe- 
cially the Gospel of John, which the Valentinians, as Irenasus 
tells us, used plenissime (Hcer. iii. IT. § 7), the Marcionites 
are an exception. They did not, however, question the 
genuineness of the Gospels, but regarded their authors as 
under the influence of Jewish prejudices. Marcion therefore 
rejected all but Luke, the Pauline Gospel, and cut out from 
this whatever he deemed objectionable. We may note here, 
incidentally, that the author of Supernatural Religion, in the 
first six editions of his work, contended, in opposition to the 
strongest evidence, that Marcion's Gospel, instead of being, 
as all ancient testimony represents it, a mutilated Luke, was 
the earlier, original Gospel, of which Luke's was a later 
amplification. This theory was started by Semler, that 
varium, mutabile et mirabile capitulum, as he is called by a 
German writer (Matthaei, N. T. Gr., i. 687) ; and after having 
been adopted by Eichhorn and many German critics was so 
thoroughly refuted by Hilgenfeld in 1850, and especially by 
Volkmar in 1852, that it was abandoned by the most eminent 
of its former supporters, as Ritschl, Zeller, and partially by 
Baur. But individuals differ widely in their power of resist- 
ing evidence opposed to their prejudices, and the author of 
Supernatural Religion has few equals in this capacity. We 
may therefore feel that something in these interminable 
discussions is settled, when we note the fact that he has at 
last surrendered. His conversion is due to Dr. Sanday, who 
in an article in the Fortnightly Review (June, 1875, p. 855, ff.), 
reproduced in substance in his work on The Gospels in the 
Second Century, introduced the linguistic argument, showing 
that the very numerous and remarkable peculiarities of lan- 
guage and style which characterize the parts of Luke which 
Marcion retained are found so fully and completely in those 
which he rejected as to render diversity of authorship utterly 
incredible. 

But to return to our first point, — the unquestioned recep- 
tion of our present Gospels throughout the Christian world 
in the last quarter of the second century, and that, I add, 
without the least trace of any previous controversy on the 

18 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



subject, with the insignificant exception of the Alogi whom I 
have mentioned. This fact has a most important bearing on 
the next question in order ; namely, whether the Apostolical 
Memoirs to which Justin Martyr appeals about the middle of 
the second century were or were not our four Gospels. To 
discuss this question fully would require a volume. All that 
I propose now is to place the subject in the light of acknowl- 
edged facts, and to illustrate the falsity of the premises from 
which the author of Supernatural Religion reasons. 

The writings of Justin consist of two Apologies or De- 
fences of Christians and Christianity addressed to the Roman 
Emperor and Senate, the first written most probably about 
the year 146 or 147 (though many place it in the year 138), 
and a Dialogue in defence of Christianity with Trypho the 
Jew, written somewhat later {Dial. c. 120, comp. Apol. i. c. 
26).* 

In these writings, addressed, it is to be observed, to unbe- 
lievers, he quotes, not in proof of doctrines, but as authority 
for his account of the teaching of Christ and the facts in his 
ljfe, certain works of which he commonly speaks as the 
"Memoirs" or " Memorabilia " of Christ, using the Greek 
word, 'AnofivrifiovEVfiaTa, with which we are familiar as the desig- 
nation of the Memorabilia of Socrates by Xenophon. Of 
these books he commonly speaks as the "Memoirs by the 
Apostles," using this expression eight times ;f four times he 
calls them "the Memoirs" simply ; J once, "Memoirs made by 
the Apostles which are called Gospels " {Apol. i. 66) ; once, 
when he cites a passage apparently from the Gospel of Luke, 
" Memoirs composed by the Apostles of Christ and their 
companions," — literally, "those who followed with them" 
{Dial. c. 103) ; once again {Dial. c. 106), when he speaks of our 
Saviour as changing the name of Peter, and of his giving to 
James and John the name Boanerges, a fact only mentioned 

* See Engelhardt, Das Ckristenthum Justins des Martyr ers (1878), p. 71 ff. ; Renan, 
L' 'Eglise chretienne (1879), p. 367, n. 4. 

t Apol. i. 67; Dial. cc. 100, ior, 102, 103, 104, 106 bis: ra a~ouv?/uovevuara TQV otto-* 
gto/mv (rov arrow, av rov , sc. Xpcaroi^ 5 times), 

%Dial. cc. 105 ter, 107. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



139 



so far as we know in the Gospel of Mark, he designates as 
his authority " Peter's Memoirs," which, supposing him to 
have used our Gospels, is readily explained by the fact that 
Peter was regarded by the ancients as furnishing the mate- 
rials for the Gospel of Mark, his travelling companion and 
interpreter.* Once more, Justin speaks in the plural of 
" those who have written Memoirs," "of all 

things concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ, whom we 
believe" (Apol. i. 33); and, again, "the Apostles wrote" 
so and so, referring to an incident mentioned in all four of 
the Gospels {Dial. c. 88). 

But the most important fact mentioned in Justin's writings 
respecting these Memoirs, which he describes as " composed 
by Apostles of Christ and their companions," appears in his 
account of Christian worship, in the sixty-seventh chapter of 
his First Apology. " On the day called Sunday," he says, 
" all who live in cities or in the country gather together to 
one place, and the Memoirs by the Apostles or the writings 
of the Prophets are read, as long as time permits. When the 
reader has finished, the president admonishes and exhorts to 
the imitation of these good things." It appears, then, that, 
at the time when he wrote, these books, whatever they were, 
on which he relied for his knowledge of Christ's teaching 
and life, were held in at least as high reverence as the writ- 
ings of the Prophets, were read in the churches just as our 
Gospels were in the last quarter of the second century, and 
formed the basis of the hortatory discourse that followed. 
The writings of the Prophets might alternate with them in 
this use ; but Justin mentions the Memoirs first. 

These " Memoirs," then, were well-known books, distin- 



*I adopt with most scholars {versics Semisch and Grimm) "the construction which refers the 
avrov in this passage not to Christ, but to Peter, in accordance with the use of the genitive after 
a~ofivi]uoveviiara everywhere else in Justin. (See a note on the question in the Christian 
Examiner for July, 1854, lvi. 128 f.) For the statement in the text, see Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 
iv. 5. : Licet et Marcus quod edidit [evangelium] Petri affirmetur, cujus interpres Marcus. Jerome, 
De Vir. ill. c. 1. : Sed et Evangelium juxta Marcum, qui auditor ejus [sc. Petri] et interpres fuit, 
hujus dicitur. Comp. ibid. c. 8, and Ep. 120 (al. 150) ad Hedib. c. 11. See also Papias, ap. 
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iii. 39; Irensus, Hcer. iii. 1, § 1 (ap. Euseb. v. 8); 10, §6; Clement of Alex- 
andria ap. Euseb. ii. 15 ; vi. 14; Origen ap. Euseb. vi. 25 ; and the striking passage of Eusebius, 
Dem. Evang. iii. 3, pp. i2od-i 2 2a, quoted by Lardner, Works iv. 91 ff. (Lond. 1829). 



140 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



guished from others as the authoritative source of instruc- 
tion concerning the doctrine and life of Christ. 

There is one other coincidence between the language 
which Justin uses in describing these books and that which 
we find in the generation following. The four Gospels as a 
collection might indifferently be called, and were indifferently 
cited as, " the Gospels " or " the Gospel." We find this use of 
the expression " the Gospel " in Theophilus of Antioch, 
Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Hippolytus, the 
Apostolical Constitutions, Tertullian, and later writers gen- 
erally.* Now Justin represents Trypho as saying, " I know 
that your precepts in what is called the Gospel (h 
evayyeMu) are so wonderful and great as to cause a suspicion 
that no one may be able to observe them." {Dial. c. 10.) In " 
another place, he quotes, apparently, Matt. xi. 27 (comp. 
Luke x. 22) as being "written in the Gospel. "f No plausi- 
ble explanation can be given of this language except that 
which recognizes in it the same usage that we constantly 
find in later Christian writers. The books which in one 
place Justin calls " Gospels," books composed by Apostles 
and their companions, were in reference to what gave them 
their distinctive value one. They were the record of the 
Gospel of Christ in different forms. No one of our present 
Gospels, if these were in circulation in the time of Justin, 
and certainly no one of that great number of Gospels which 

* See Justin or Pseudo-Justin, De Res. c. 10.— Ignat. or Pseudo-Ignat. Ad Philad. cc. 5, 
8; Smyrn. cc. s(?), 7. — Pseudo-Clem. 2 Ep. ad Cor. c. 8. — Theophil. iii. 14. — Iren. Hcer. 

1. 7. §4; 8. §4; 20. §2; 27. §2. ii. 22. §5; 26. §2. iii. 5. §1; 9. §2; 10. §§2, 6: ri. §§8 
(rerpafioptyov to evayyeXiov) , 9 5 * 6 - § 5- iv. 20. §§ 6, 9 ; 32. § 1 ; 34- § i — Clem. Al. Peed. i. c. 
5, pp. 104, 105, bis ed. Potter; c. 9, pp. i43> 145 bis, 148. ii. 1, p. 169; c. 10, p. 235; c. 12, p. 
246. Strom, ii. 16, p. 467. iii. 6, p. 537; c. 11, p. 544. iv. 1, p. 564; c. 4, p. 570. v. 5, p. 664. 
vi. 6, p. 764; c. 11, p. 784 bis ; c. 14, p. 797. vii. 3, P- 836. Eel. proph. cc. 50, 57. — Origen, Cont. 
Cels. i. 51. ii. 13, 24, 27, 34, 36, 37, 61, 63 (Opp. I. 367, 398, 409. 4", 4i5> 4i6 bis, 433, 434 ed. 
Delarue). In Joan. torn. i. §§4, 5. v. §4. (Opp. IV. 4, 98.) Pseudo-Orig. Dial, de recta 
in Deum fide, sect. 1 (Opp. I. 807).— Hippol. No'et. c. 6.- Const. Ap. i. r, 2 bis, 5, 6. ii. 1 bis, 
5 bis, 6 bis, 8, 13, 16, 17, 35,39. iii. 7- v. 14. vi. 23 bis, 28. vii. 24. -Tertull. Cast. c. 4. Pudic. c. 

2. Adv. Marc. iv. 7. Hervwg. c. 20. Resurr. c. 27. Prax. cc 20, 21.— Plural, Muratorian 
Canon (also the sing.). — Theophilus, A d A utol. iii. 12, ra rebv rvpoor/rcov nat TO)V evayye/Jov. 
— Clem. Al. Strom, iv. 6. p. 582. Hippol. Adv. Hcer. vii. 38, p. 259, ruv de evayyeh'iuv rj .rov 
aiTOCT67iOV and later writers everywhere.— Plural used where the passage quoted is found in only 
one of the Gospels, Basilides ap. Hippol. Adv. Hcer. vii. 22, 27 — Const. Ap. ii. 53.— Cyril of 
Jerusalem, Procat. c. 3; Cat. ii. 4; x. 1 ; xvi. 16.— Theodoret, Qua:st. in Num. c. xix. q. 35, 
Migne lxxx. 385; InPs. xlv. 16, M. lxxx. 1197; In 1 Thess. v. 15, M. lxxxii. 649, and so often. 

t On this important passage see Note A at the end of this essay. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 14I 

the writer of Supernatural Religion imagines to have been 
current at that period, could have been so distinguished from 
the rest as to be called " the Gospel." 

It has been maintained by the author of Supernatural Re- 
ligion and others that Justin's description of the Gospels as 
" Memoirs composed by the Apostles and those who followed 
with them " (to render the Greek verbally) cannot apply to 
works composed by two Apostles and two companions of 
Apostles : " the Apostles " must mean all the Apostles, " the 
collective body of the Apostles." (S. R. i. 291.) Well, if it 
must, then the connected expression, " those that followed 
with them" ( T av kicdvoig Tzapanolovd?]oavTm) , where the definite 
article is used in just the same way in Greek, must mean " all 
those that followed with them." We have, then, a truly mar- 
vellous book, if we take the view of Supernatural Religion 
that the " Memoirs " of Justin was a single work ; a Gospel, 
namely, composed by " the collective body of the Apostles " 
and the collective body of those who accompanied them. If 
the " Memoirs " consist of several different books thus com- 
posed, the marvel is not lessened. Now Justin is not respon- 
sible for this absurdity. The simple fact is that the definite 
article in Greek in this case distinguishes the two classes to 
which the writers of the Gospels belonged.* 

To state in full detail and with precision all the features of 
the problem presented by Justin's quotations, and his refer- 
ences to facts in the life of Christ, is here, of course, impos- 
sible. But what, is the obvious aspect of the case? 

It will not be disputed that there is a very close cor- 
respondence between the history of Christ sketched by 
Justin, embracing numerous details, and that found in our 
Gospels : the few statements not authorized by them, such 
as that Christ was born in a cave, that the Magi came from 
Arabia, that Christ as a carpenter made ploughs and yokes, 

*For illustrations of this use of the article, see Norton's Evidences of the Genuineness of 
the Gospels, ist ed. (1837), v °l- *• P- I 9°> note. Comp. 1 Thess. ii. 14 and Jude 17, where it would 
be idle to suppose that the writer means that all the Apostles had given the particular warning 
referred to. See also Origen, Cont. Cels. i. 51, p. 367, piera r?)v avayeypafi/dvTjv ev rolg 
tvayye/doiq vtto t ojv 'Ir/avv /xadr/ruv laroplav; and ii. 13, Traparr/Jjoia roiq vtto tuv 
fiW&Tirojv rov 'Ir/cov ypa<pelciv. See, further, Note B at the end of this essay. 



142 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



present little or no objection to the supposition that they 
were his main authority. These details may be easily ex- 
plained as founded on oral tradition, or as examples of that 
substitution of inferences from facts for the facts themselves, 
which we find in so many ancient and modern writers, and 
observe in every-day life.* Again, there is a substantial cor- 
respondence between the teaching of Christ as reported by 
Justin and that found in the Gospels. Only one or two 
sayings are ascribed to Christ by Justin which are not con- 
tained in the Gospels, and these may naturally be referred, 
like others which we find in writers who received our four 
Gospels as alone authoritative, to oral tradition, or may have 
been taken from some writing or writings now lost which 
contained such traditions.! That Justin actually used all 
our present Gospels is admitted by Hilgenfeld and Keim. 
But that they were not his main authority is argued chiefly 
from the want of exact verbal correspondence between his 
citations of the words of Christ and the language of our 
Gospels, where the meaning is essentially the same. The 
untenableness of this argument has been demonstrated, I 
conceive, by Norton, Semisch, Westcott, and Sanday, versus 
Hilgenfeld and Supernatural Religion. Its weakness is illus- 
trated in a Note at the end of this essay, and will be further 
illustrated presently by the full discussion of a passage of 
special interest and importance. Justin nowhere expressly 

* Several of Justin's additions in the way of detail seem to have proceeded from his assumfi- 
tion of the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies, or what he regarded as such. See Semisch, 
Die apost. Denkwiirdigkeiten des Martyrers Justinus (1848), p. 377 ff. ; Volkmar, Der 
Ursprung unserer Evangelien (1866), p. 124 f. ; Westcott, Canon of the N. T., p. 162, 4th ed. 
(1875). and Dr. E. A. Abbott, art. Gospels in the ninth ed. of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (p. 817), 
who remarks : " Justin never quotes any rival Gospel, nor alleges any words or facts which make 
it probable he used a rival • Gospel ; such non-canonical sayings and facts as he mentions are 
readily explicable as the results of lapse of memory, general looseness and inaccuracy, extending 
to the use of the Old as well as the New Testament, and the desire to adapt the facts of the New 
Scriptures to the prophecies of the Old." (p. 818). 

t See Westcott, "On the Apocryphal Traditions of the Lord's Words and Works," appended 
to his Introd. to the Study of the Gospels, 5th ed. (1875), pp. 453-461, and the little volume of 
J. T. Dodd, Sayings ascribed to our Lord by the Fathers, etc., Oxford, 1874. Compare Norton, 
Genuineness of the Gospels, 2d ed. , i. 220 ff. The stress which the author of Sztper7iatural Religion 
lays on the word rravra in the passage (Apol. i. 33) where Justin speaks of "those who have 
written memoirs of all things concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ " shows an extraordinary 
disregard of the common use of such expressions. It is enough to compare, as Westcott does, 
Acts i. 1 • For illustrations from Justin {Apol. ii. 6; i. 45 ; Dial. cc. 44, 121) see Semisch, Die 
apost. Denkwur digkeiten u. s. w., p. 404 f. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 143 



quotes the " Memoirs " for anything which is not substan- 
tially found in our Gospels ; and there is nothing in his 
deviations from exact correspondence with them, as regards 
matters of fact, or the report of the words of Christ, which 
may not be abundantly paralleled in the writings of the 
Christian Fathers who used our four Gospels as alone 
authoritative. 

With this view of the state of the case, and of the char- 
acter of the books used and described by Justin though 
without naming their authors, let us now consider the 
bearing of the indisputable fact (with which the author of 
Supernatural Religion thinks he has no concern) of the gen- 
eral reception of our four Gospels as genuine in the last 
quarter of the second century. As I cannot state the argu- 
ment more clearly or more forcibly than it has been done by 
Mr. Norton, I borrow his language. Mr. Norton says : — 

The manner in which Justin speaks of the character and authority 
of the books to which he appeals, of their reception among Christians, 
and of the use which was made of them, proves these books to have 
been the Gospels. They carried with them the authority of the Apostles. 
They were those writings from which he and other Christians derived 
their knowledge of the history and doctrines of Christ. They were relied 
upon by him as primary and decisive evidence in his explanations of the 
character of Christianity. Trley were regarded as sacred books. They 
were read in the assemblies of Christians on the Lord's day, in connection 
with the Prophets of the Old Testament. Let us now consider the 
manner in which the Gospels were regarded by the contemporaries of 
Justin. Irenaeus was in the vigor of life before Justin's death; and the 
same was true of very many thousands of Christians living when Irenaeus 
wrote. But he tells us that the four Gospels are the four pillars of the 
Church, the foundation of Christian faith, written by those who had first 
orally preached the Gospel, by two Apostles and two companions of 
Apostles. It is incredible that Irenaeus and Justin should have spoken 
of different books. We cannot suppose that writings, such as the 
Memoirs of which Justin speaks, believed to be the works of Apostles 
and companions of Apostles, read in Christian Churches, and received 
as sacred books, of the highest authority, should, immediately after he 
wrote, have fallen into neglect and oblivion, and been superseded by 
another set of books. The strong sentiment of their value could not so 
silently, and so unaccountably, have changed into entire disregard, and 
have been transferred to other writings. The copies of them spread 
Over the world could not so suddenly and mysteriously have disappeared. 



144 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



that no subsequent trace of their existence should be clearly discoverable. 
When, ther- fore, we find Irenaeus, the contemporary of Justin, ascribing 
to the four Gospels the same character, the same authority, and the same 
authors, as are ascribed by Justin to the Memoirs quoted by him, which 
were called Gospels, there can be no reasonable doubt that the Memoirs 
of Justin were the Gospels of Irenaeus.* 

It may be objected to Mr. Norton's argument, that "many 
writings which have been excluded from the canon were 
publicly read in the churches, until very long after Justin's 
day." (S.R. i. 294.) The author of Supernatural Religion 
mentions particularly the Epistle of the Roman Clement to 
the Corinthians, the Epistle of Soter, the Bishop of Rome, 
to the Corinthians, the " Pastor " or " Shepherd " of Hermas, 
and the Apocalypse of Peter. To these may be added the 
Epistle ascribed to Barnabas. 

To give the objection any force, the argument must run 
thus: The writings above named were at one time gener- 
ally regarded by Christians as sacred books, of the highest 
authority and importance, and placed at least on a level with 
the writings of the prophets of the Old Testament. They 
were afterwards excluded from the canon : therefore a similar 
change might take place among Christians in their estimate 
of the writings which Justin has described under the name 
of " Memoirs by the Apostles." In the course of thirty 
years, a different set of books might silently supersede them 
in the whole Christian world. 

The premises are false. There is no proof that any one 
of these writings was ever regarded as possessing the same 
authority and value as Justin's " Memoirs," or anything like 
it. From the very nature of the case, books received as au- 
thentic records of the life and teaching of Christ must have 
had an importance which could belong to no others. On 
the character of the teaching and the facts of the life of 
Christ as recorded in the "Memoirs," Justin's whole argu- 
ment rests. Whether he regarded the Apostolic writings 
as "inspired" or not, he unquestionably regarded Christ as 
inspired, or rather as the divine, inspiring Logos (Apol. i. 



* Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, 2d ed., vol. i. pp. 237-239. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



145 



33, 36 ; ii. 10) ; and his teaching as "the new law/' universal, 
everlasting, which superseded "the old covenant." (See 
Dial. cc. 11, 12, etc.) The books that contained this were to 
the Christians of Justin's time the very foundation of their 
faith. 

As to the works mentioned by Supernatural Religion, not 
only is there no evidence that any one of them ever held a 
place in the Christian Church to be compared for a moment 
with that of the Gospels, but there is abundant evidence to 
the contrary. They were read in some churches for a time 
as edifying books, — the Epistle of Clement of Rome "in 
very many churches " according to Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 

iii. 16), — and a part of them were regarded by a few Chris- 
tian writers as having apostolic or semi-apostolic authority, 
or as divinely inspired. One of the most definite statements 
about them is that of Dionysius of Corinth (cir. a.d. 175-180), 
who, in a letter to the church at Rome (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 

iv. 23), tells us that the Epistle of Soter (d. 176?) to the 
Christians at Corinth was read in their church for edification 
or "admonition" (rovderdodai is the word used) on a certain 
Sunday, and would continue to be so read from time to time, 
as the Epistle of Clement had been. This shows how far the 
occasional public reading of such a writing in the church 
was from implying its canonical authority. — Clement of 
x^Uexandria repeatedly quotes the Epistle ascribed to Barna- 
bas as the work of " Barnabas the Apostle," but criticises 
and condemns one of his interpretations (Strom, ii. 15, 
p. 464), and in another place, as Mr. Norton remarks, rejects 
a fiction found in the work (Peed. ii. 10, p. 220, ft".). — "The 
Shepherd" of Hermas in its form claims to be a divine 
vision ; its allegorical character suited the taste of many ; 
and the Muratorian Canon (cir. a.d. 170) says that it ought 
to be read in the churches, but not as belonging to the writ- 
ings of the prophets or apostles. (See Credner, Gesch. d. 
neutest. Kanon, p. 165.) This was the general view of those 
who did not reject it as altogether apocryphal. It appears in 
the Sinaitic MS. as an appendix to the New Testament. — The 
Apocalypse of Peter appears to have imposed upon some 

19 



146 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



as the work of the Apostle. The Muratorian Canon says, 
"Some among us are unwilling that it should be read in the 
church." It seems to have been received as genuine by 
Clement of Alexandria (Eel. proph. cc. 41, 48, 49) and Meth- 
odius (Conv. ii. 6). Besides these, the principal writers who 
speak of it are Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. iii. 3. §2; 25. §4; vi. 
14. § 1), who rejects it as uncanonical or spurious, Jerome 
(De Vir. ill. c. 1), who puts it among apocryphal writings, 
and Sozomen (Hist. Eccl. vii. 19), who mentions that, though 
rejected by the ancients as spurious, it was read once a year 
in some churches of Palestine.* 

It appears sufficiently from what has been said that there 
is nothing in the limited ecclesiastical use of these books, or 
in the over-estimate of their authority and value by some 
individuals, to detract from the force of Mr. Norton's argu- 
ment. Supernatural Religion here confounds things that 
differ very widely.f 

At this stage of the argument, we are entitled, I think, to 
come to the examination of the apparent use of the Gospel 
of John by Justin Martyr with a strong presumption in favor 
of the view that this apparent use is real. In other words, 
there is a very strong presumption that the " Memoirs" used 
by Justin and called by him " Gospels " and collectively " the 
Gospel," and described as " composed by Apostles of Christ 
and their companions," were actually our present Gospels, 
composed by two Apostles and two companions of Apostles. 
This presumption is, I believe, greatly strengthened by the 
evidence of the use of the Fourth Gospel by writers between 
the time of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, and also by the 
evidences of its use before the time of Justin by the Gnostic 
sects. But, leaving those topics for the present, we will con- 
sider the direct evidence of its use by Justin. 

The first passage noticed will be examined pretty thor- 
oughly : both because the discussion of it will serve to illus- 
trate the false reasoning of the author of Supernatural Relig- 



* See, on this book, Hilgenfeld, Nov. Test, extra canonem receptum (1866), iv. 74, &■ 

t On this whole subject, see Semisch, Die afostol. Denkwurdigkeiten des Mart. Ji<stinus ] 



The authorship of the fourth gospel. 14J 



ion and other writers respecting the quotations of Justin 
Martyr which agree in substance with passages in our 
Gospels while differing in the form of expression; and 
because it is of special importance in its bearing on the 
question whether Justin made use of the Fourth Gospel, and 
seems to me, when carefully examined, to be in itself almost 
decisive. 

The passage is that in which Justin gives an account of 
Christian baptism, in the sixty-first chapter of his First 
Apology. Those who are ready to make a Christian pro- 
fession, he says, " are brought by us to a place where there 
is water, and in the manner of being born again [or regen- 
erated] in which we ourselves also were born again, they are 
born again ; for in the name of the Father of the universe 
and sovereign God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and 
of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the bath in the water. 
For Christ also said, Except ye be born again, ye shall in 
no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven (*Av p) avayevv^re, 

ov fifj elaE/Jdrj-E elg rr/v ftao&eiav tgjv ovpavtiv) . But that it is impossible 

for those who have once been born to enter into the wombs 
of those who brought them forth is manifest to. all." 

The passage in the Gospel of John of which this reminds 
us is found in chap. iii. 3-5 : "Jesus answered and said to him 
[Nicodemus], Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man 
be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God ('Eav m rig 

yEvvrjdri avudEv, ov dvvarac idelv rtjv fiaaiAEiav rov 6eov). NicodemUS Saith 

to him, How can a man be born when he is old ? Can he 
enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? 
Jesus answered, Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man 
be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 

kingdom of God " ( 'Eav jii] rig y£vv7jdy eg vdarog ml TTVEVfiarog, ov dvvarai 

eloeMetv slg -rjv fiaaueiav rov deoi). Compare verse 7, " Marvel not 
that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew" (Set bfiag yevvrfifjvai 
avudEv); and Matt, xviii. 3, "Verily I say unto you, Except ye 
be changed, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise 
enter into the kingdom of heaven" (ov ft?) eIgeWtjte dg rrjv < fiaaiMav 

rov oiipavcov). 

I have rendered the Greek as literally as possible ; but it 



148 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



should be observed that the word translated " anew," avudev, 
might also be rendered "from above." This point will be 
considered hereafter. 

Notwithstanding the want of verbal correspondence, I 
believe that we have here in Justin a free quotation from 
the Gospel of John, modified a little by a reminiscence of 
Matt, xviii. 3. 

The first thing that strikes us in Justin's quotation is the 
fact that the remark with which it concludes, introduced by 
Justin as if it were a grave observation of his own, is simply 
silly in the connection in which it stands. In John, on the 
other hand, where it is not to be understood as a serious 
question, it admits, as we shall see, of a natural explanation 
as the language of Nicodemus. This shows, as everything 
else shows, the weakness (to use no stronger term) of Volk- 
mar's hypothesis, that John has here borrowed from Justin, 
not Justin from John. The observation affords also, by its 
very remarkable peculiarity, strong evidence that Justin 
derived it, together with the declaration which accompanies 
it, from the Fourth Gospel. 

It will be well, before proceeding to our immediate task, 
to consider the meaning of the passage in John, and what 
the real difficulty of Nicodemus was. He could not have 
been perplexed by the figurative use of the expression " to 
be born anew " : that phraseology was familiar to the Jews 
to denote the change which took place in a Gentile when he 
became a proselyte to Judaism.* But the unqualified lan- 
guage of our Saviour, expressing a universal necessity, 
implied that even the Jewish Pharisee, with all his pride of 
sanctity and superior knowledge, must experience a radical 
change, like that which a Gentile proselyte to Judaism under- 
went, before he could enjoy the blessings of the Messiah's 
kingdom. This was what amazed Nicodemus. Pretending 
therefore to take the words in their literal meaning, he asks, 
" How can a man be born when he is old ? Can he enter," 
etc. He imposes an absurd and ridiculous sense on the 



*See Lightfoot and Wetstein, or T. Robinson or Wiinsche, on John iii. 3 or 5. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 149 

words, to lead Jesus to explain himself further.* Thus 
viewed, the question is to some purpose in John ; while 
the language in Justin, as a serious proposition, is idle, and 
betrays its non-originality. 

The great difference in the form of expression between 
Justin's citation and the Gospel of John is urged as decisive 
against the supposition that he has here used this Gospel. 
It is observed further that all the deviations of Justin from 
the language of the Fourth Gospel are also found in a 
quotation of the words of Christ in the Clementine Homilies ; 
and hence it has been argued that Justin and the writer of 
the Clementines quoted from the same apocryphal Gospel, 
perhaps the Gospel according to the Hebrews or the Gospel 
according to Peter. In the Clementine Homilies (xi. 26), 
the quotation runs as follows : " For thus the prophet 
swore unto us, saying, Verily I say unto you, except ye be 
born again by living water into the name of Father, Son, 
Holy Spirit, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of 
heaven." But it will be seen at once that the author of the 
Clementines differs as widely from Justin as Justin from the 
Fourth Gospel, and that there is no plausibility in the suppo- 
sition that he and Justin quoted from the same apocryphal 
book. The quotation in the Clementines is probably only 
a free combination of the language in John iii. 3-5 with 
Matt, xxviii. 19, modified somewhat in form by the influence 
of Matt, xviii. 3.f Such combinations of different passages, 
and such quotations of the words of Christ according to the 
sense rather than the letter, are not uncommon in the 
Fathers. Or, the Clementines may have used Justin. 

I now propose to show in detail that the differences in form 
between Justin's quotation and the phraseology of the Fourth 
Gospel, marked as they are, all admit of an easy and natural 
explanation on the supposition that he really borrowed from 
it, and that they are paralleled by similar variations in the 

*See Norton, A New Trans, of the Gospels, with Notes, vol. ii. p. 507. 

t On the quotations from the Gospel of John as well as from the other Gospels in the 
Clementine Homilies, see Sanday, The Gospels in the Second Century, pp. 288-295 ; comp. 
pp. 161-187. See also Westcott, Canon of the N. T., pp. 282-288; and comp. pp. 150-156. 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



quotations of the same passage by Christian writers who 
used our four Gospels as their exclusive authority. If this 
is made clear, the fallacy of the assumption on which the 
author of Supernatural Religion reasons in his remarks on 
this passage, and throughout his discussion of Justin's quota- 
tions, will be apparent. He has argued on an assumption of 
verbal accuracy in the quotations of the Christian Fathers 
which is baseless, and which there were peculiar reasons for 
not expecting from Justin in such works as his Apologies. f 
Let us take up the differences point by point : — 
i. The solemn introduction, "Verily, verily I say unto 
thee," is omitted. But this would be very naturally omitted : 
(i) because it is of no importance for the sense; and (2) 
because the Hebrew words used, 'A«?> a^v, would be unintel- 
ligible to the Roman Emperor, without a particular explana- 
tion (comp. Apol. i. 65). (3) They are usually omitted by 
Christian writers in quoting the passage: so, for example, by 
the Docetist in Hippolytus {Adv. Hcer. viii. 10, p. 267), Ire- 
n,eus (Frag. 35, ed. Stieren, 33 Harvey), Origen, in a Latin 
version (In Ex. Horn. v. 1, Opp. ii. 144, ed. Delarue ; hi Ep. ad 
Rom. lib. v. c. 8, Opp. iv. 560), the Apostolical Constitu- 
tions (vi. 15), Eusebius twice (In Isa. i. 16, 17, and iii. 1, 2 ; 
Migne xxiv. 96, 109), Atha'nasius (De Incarn. c. 14, Opp. 
i. 59, ed. Montf.), Cyril of Jerusalem twice (Cat. iii. 4; 
xvii. 11), Basil the Great (Adv. Eunom. lib. v. Opp. i. 308 
(437), ed. Benedict.), Pseudo-Basil three times (De Bapt. 
i. 2. §§ 2, 6; ii. 1. § 1 ; Opp. ii. 630 (896), 633 (899), 653 
(925) ), Gregory NysseN (De Christi Bapt. Opp. iii. 369), 
Ephraem Syrus (De Poenit. Opp. iii. 183), Macarius ^Egyp- 



t On the whole subject of Justin Martyr's quotations, I would refer to the admirably clear, 
forcible, and accurate statement of the case in Norton's Evidences of the Genuineness of the 
Gospels, 2d ed., vol. i. pp. 200-239, an( i Addit. Note E, pp. ccxiv.-ccxxxviii. His account is 
less detailed than that of Semisch, Rilgenf eld, and Supernatural Religion, but is thoroughly 
trustworthy. I have noticed only one oversight : Mr. Norton says that " Justin twice gives the 
words, Thoii art my son; this day have I begotten thee, as those uttered at our Saviour's 
baptism; and in one place says expressly that the words were found in the Memoirs by the 
Apostles." This last statement seems to me incorrect. The quotations referred to will be found 
in Dial. c. Tryph. cc. 88, 103 ; but in neither case does Justin say, according to the grammatical 
construction of his language, that the words in question were found in the Memoirs. The discus- 
sion of Justin's quotations by Professor Westcott and Dr. Sanday in the works referred to in the 
preceding note is also valuable, especially in reference to the early variations in the text of the 
Gospels. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 5 I 



tius (Horn. xxx. 3), Chrysostom (De consubst. vii. 3, Opp. 
i. 505 (618), ed. Montf. ; In Gen. Serm. vii. 5, Opp. iv. 681 
(789), and elsewhere repeatedly), Theodoret (Qucest. in 
Num. 35, Migne Ixxx. 385), Basil of Seleucia (Oral. 
xxviii. 3, Migne lxxxv. 321), and a host of other writers, both 
Greek and Latin, — I could name forty, if necessary. 

2. The change of the indefinite rcg, in the singular, to the 
second person plural : " Except a man be born anew " to 
" Except ye be born anew." This also is unimportant. 
This is shown, and the origin of the change is partially 
explained (1) by the fact, not usually noticed, that it is made 
by the speaker himself in the Gospel, in professedly repeating 
in the seventh verse the words used in the third; the indefi- 
nite singular involving, and being equivalent to, the plural. 
Verse 7 reads: "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must 
be born anew." (2) The second person plural would also 
be suggested by the similar passage in Matt, xviii. 3, " Except 
yt be changed and become as little children, ye shall in no 
wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." Nothing was more 
natural than that in a quotation from memory the language 
of these two kindred passages should be somewhat mixed ; 
and such a confusion of similar passages is frequent in the 
writings of the Fathers. This affords an easy explanation 
also of Justin's substituting, in agreement with Matthew, 
" shall in no wise enter" for "cannot enter," and "kingdom 
of heaven" for "kingdom of God." The two passages of 
John and Matthew are actually mixed together in a some- 
what similar way in a free quotation by Clement of Alex- 
andria, a writer who unquestionably used our Gospels alone 
as authoritative, — "the four Gospels, which," as he says, 
"have been handed down to us" (Strom, iii. 13, p. 553).* 
(3) This declaration of Christ would often be quoted in the 
early Christian preaching, in reference to the importance of 
baptism ; and the second person plural would thus be natu- 



* Clement {Cohort, ad Gentes, c. 9, p. 69) blends Matt, xviii. 3 and John iii. 3 as follows: 
" Except ye again become as little children, and be born again [avayevvrjdrjTe) , as the Scripture 
saith, ye will in no wise receive him who is truly your Father, and wi]l in no wise ever enter into 

the kingdom of heaven," 



152 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



rally substituted for the indefinite singular, to give greater 
directness to the exhortation. So in the Clementine Homi- 
lies (xi. 26), and in both forms of the Clementine Epitome 
(c. 18, pp. 16, 134, ed. Dressel, Lips. 1859). (4) That this 
change of number and person does not imply the use of an 
apocryphal Gospel is further shown by the fact that it is 
made twice in quoting the passage by Jeremy Taylor, who 
in a third quotation also substitutes the plural for the singu- 
lar in a somewhat different way.* (See below, p. 158.) 

3. The change of hav [irj rtq yevv7]dy avodev, verse 3 (or yevvTjOr) 

merely, verse 5), " Except a man be born anew," or " over 
again," into hv a?) avayew^re, " Except ye be born again," or 
" regenerated " ; in other words, the substitution of avayevvao&ai 
for yewao&ai avo&ev, or for the simple verb in verse 5, presents 
no real difficulty, though much has been made of it. (1) It 
is said that yewaa&ai avu&ev cannot mean "to be born anew," 
but must mean ''to be born from above." But we have the 
clearest philological evidence that avutiev has the meaning of 
"anew," "over again," as well as "from above." In the 
only passage in a classical author where the precise phrase, 
yewao&at aw&ev, has been pointed out, namely, Artemidorus on 
Dreams, i. 13, ed. Reiff (al. 14), it cannot possibly have any 
other meaning. Meyer, who rejects this sense, has fallen 
into a strange mistake about the passage in Artemidorus, 
showing that he cannot have looked at it. Meaning "from 
above" or "from the top" (Matt, xxvii. 51), then "from the 
beginning" (Luke i. 3), awfe is used, with -d?jv to strengthen 

* Professor James Drummond well remarks : " How easily such a change might be made, when 
verbal accuracy was not studied, is instructively shewn in Theophylact's paraphrase [I translate 
the Greek ] : ' But I say unto thee, that both thou and every other man whatsoever, unless having 
been born from above [or anew] and of God, ye receive the true faith [lit. the worthy opinion] 
concerning me, are outside of the kingdom.' " Chrysostom (also cited by Prof. Drummond) 
observes that Christ's words are equivalent to hav av fi?) yevvir&Tj K.rX, "Except thou be 
born," etc., but are put in the indefinite form in order to make the discourse less offensive. I 
gladly take this opportunity to call attention to the valuable article by Prof. Drummond in the 
Theological Review for October, 1875, vol. xii. pp. 47 I ~4S8, "On the alleged Quotation from the 
Fourth Gospel relating to the New Birth, in Justin Martyr, Apol. i. c. 61." He has treated 
the question with the ability, candor, and cautious accuracy of statement which distinguish his 
writings generally. For the quotation given above, see p. 47 6 of tne Review. I am indebted to 
him for several valuable suggestions; but, to. prevent misapprehension as to the extent of this 
indebtedness, I may be permitted to refer to my note on the subject in the American edition of 
Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 1433. published in 1869, six years before the appear- 
ance of Prof. Di'ummond's article, 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



153 



it, to signify "again from the beginning," "all over again" 
(Gal. iv. 9, where see the passages from Galen and Hippo- 
crates cited by Wetstein, and Wisd. of Sol. xix. 6, where see 
Grimm's note), like iraliv kit Sevrepov or Sevrepov (Matt. xxvi. 42, 

John xxi. l6), and in the classics ir&Tuv av, -koKlv av^ig, ira/uv eg apxm- 

Thus it gets the meaning " anew," " over again " ; see the 
passages cited by McClellan in his note on John iii. 3.* 
(2) r Awfe was here understood as meaning " again " by the 
translators of many of the ancient versions ; namely, the Old 
Latin, "denuo," the Vulgate, Coptic, Peshito Syriac {Sup. 
Re/., 6th edit., is mistaken about this), ^thiopic, Georgian 
(see Malan's The Gospel according to St. John, etc.). (3) The 
Christian Fathers who prefer the other interpretation, as 
Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theophylact, recognize the 
fact that the word may have either meaning. The ambi- 
guity is also noticed by Chrysostom. (4) 'Avayewao&at was the 
common word in Christian literature to describe the change 
referred to. So already in 1 Pet. i. 3, 23 ; comp. 1 Pet. ii. 
2 ; and see the context in Justin. (5) This meaning best 
suits the connection. Verse 4 represents it as so understood 
by Xicodemus : " Can he enter a second time" etc. The fact 
that John has used the word avw&ev in two other passages in 
a totally different connection (viz. iii. 31, xix. 11) in the 
sense of " from above " is of little weight. He has nowhere 
else used it in reference to the new birth to denote that it is 
a birth from above : to express that idea, he has used a differ- 



*Tbe passages are: Joseph. A nt. i. 18, § 3 ; Socrates in Stobaeus, Flor. cxxiv. 41, iv. 135 
Meineke ; Harpocration, Lex. s. v. avaSiKaGaodat: Pseudo-Basil, De Bapf. i. 2. §7; Can. 
Apost. 46, al. 47, al. 39; to which add Origen, In Joan. torn. xx. c. 12, Opp. iv. 322, who gives 
the words of Christ to Peter in the legend found in the Acts of Paul : avw&EV ue'A/.u) 
GTCLVpw&Tjvai =" iterunt crucifigi." I have verified McClellan's references {The N.T. etc. 
vol. 1. p. 284, Lond. 1875), and given them in a form in which they may be more easily found. 

Though many of the best commentators take avco'&ev here in the sense of "from above," 
as Bengel, Liicke, De Wette, Meyer, Clausen, and so the lexicographers Wahl, Bretschneider, 
Robinson, the rendering "anew" is supported by Chrysostom, Nonnus, Euthymius, Luther, 
Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Wetstein, Kypke, Krebs, Knapp {Scripta var. Arg.'i. 188, ed. 2da), 
Kuinoel, Credner (Beitrdge, i. 253), Olshausen, Tholuck, Neander, Norton, Noyes, Alford, 
Ewald, Hofmann, Luthardt, Weiss, Godet, Farrar, Watkins, Westcott, and the recent lexico- 
graphers, Grimm and Cremer. The word is not to be understood as merely equivalent to 
"again," "a second time," but implies an entire change. Compare the use of elc TE/\og in the 
sense of " completely," and the Ep. of Barnabas, c. 16. § 8 (cited by Bretschneider) : " Having 
received the forgiveness of our sins, and having placed our hope in the Name, we became new 
men, created again from the beginning" (tzci7.lv apxVQ)- 

21 



154 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



ent expression, yEwir&vvcu ek &e6v or ek. tov &eov, "to be born [or 
begotten] of God," which occurs once in the Gospel (i. 13) 
and nine times in the First Epistle, so that the presumption 
is that, if he had wished to convey that meaning here, he 
would have used here also that unambiguous expression. 
But what is decisive as to the main point is the fact that 

Justin's word avayewrr&V is actually Substituted for yevvrj-dy avbr&ev 

in verse 3, or for the simple yevyrfty in verse 5, by a large 
number of Christian writers who unquestionably quote from 
John ; so, besides the Clementine Homilies (xi. 26) and the 
Clementine Epitome in both forms (c. 18), to which excep- 
tion has been taken with no sufficient reason, Irex.eus (Frag. 
35, ed. Stieren, i. 846), Eusebius (In Isa. i. 16, 17; Migne 
xxiv. 96), Athanasius (De Incarn. c. 14), Basil (Adv. Eunom. 
lib. v. Opp. i. 308 (437)), Ephraem Syrus (De Pcenit. Opp. 
iii. 183 (avayew?r&y avu&ev)), Chrysostom (In i Ep. ad Cor. xv. 29, 
Opp. x. 378 (440)), Cyril of Alexandria (In Joan. iii. 5, 
E^avayevvTr&v vdarog k.tX, so Pusey's critical ed., vol. i. p. 219; 
Aubert has yevvrr&v kg vd.) ; and so, probably, Anastasius 
Sinaita preserved in a Latin version (Anagog. Contemp. in 
Hexaem. lib. iv., Migne lxxxix. 906, regenerates ; contra, col. 
870 genitus, 916 generates), and Hesychius of Jerusalem 
in a Latin version (In lev it. xx. 9, Migne xciii. 1044, regen- 
erates ; but col. 974, renatus). In the Old Latin version or 
versions and the Vulgate, the MSS. are divided in John iii. 
3 between nates and renatus, and so in verse 4, 2d clause, 
between nasci and renasci ; but in verse 5 renatus fuerit is the 
unquestionable reading of the Latin versions, presupposing, 
apparently, avayevv^y in the Greek. (See Teschendorf's 8th 
critical edition of the Greek Test, in loc.) The Latin Fathers, 
with the exception of Tertullian and Cyprian, who have both 
readings, and of the author De Rebaptismate (c. 3), in quoting 
the passage, almost invariably have renatus. 

We occasionally find avay'Evvijdfjvai, "to be born again," for 
yevvr]d?]vaL ) " to be born," in the first clause of verse 4; so 
Ephraem Syrus (De Pcenit. Opp. iii. 183), and Cyril of 
Alexandria (Gldph. in Exod. lib. iii. Opp. i. a. 341). 

From all that has been said, it will be seen that the use of 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



155 



hvayevvrj&jTE here by Justin is easily explained. Whether avodev 
in John really mean's "from above" or "anew" is of little 
importance in its bearing on our question : there can be no 
doubt that Justin may have understood it in the latter sense ; 
and, even if he did not, the use of the term avayewtiodai here 
was very natural, as is shown by the way in which the pas- 
sage is quoted by Irenaeus, Eusebius, and many other writers 
cited above. 

4. The next variation, the change of "cannot see " or "enter 
into " (ov Svvarai ideiv or etoe/Mv ek\ Lat. non potest videre, or 
intrare or introire in), into "shall not" or "shall in no wise 
see " or "enter into " (ov $ once idoi, or ov ,«?) eloe?jdy or eur&0qre 
sic. once ovk elae?.evcerai' eig, Lat. non videbit, or intrabit or intro- 
ibit in), is both so natural (comp. Matt, xviii. 3) and so trivial 
as hardly to deserve mention. It is perhaps enough to say 
that I have noted sixty-nine examples of it in the quotations 
of this passage by forty-two different writers among the 
Greek and Latin Fathers. It is to be observed that in most 
of the quotations of the passage by the Fathers, verses 3 and 
5 are mixed in different ways, as might be expected. 

5. The change of "kingdom of God" into "kingdom of 
heaven " is perfectly natural, as they are synonymous expres- 
sions, and as the phrase "kingdom of heaven" is used in 
the passage of Matthew already referred to, the language of 
which was likely to be more or less confounded in recollec- 
tion with that of this passage in John. The change is 
actually made in several Greek MSS. in the 5 th verse of 
John, including the Sinaitic, and is even received by Tisch- 
endorf into the text, though, I believe, on insufficient" grounds. 
But a great number of Christian writers in quoting from John 
make just the same change; so the Docetist in Hippoly- 
tus {Adv. Hcer. viii. 10, p. 267), the Clementine Homilies 
(xi. 26), the Recognitions (i. 69 ; vi. 9), the Clementine 
Epitome (c. 18) in both forms, Irenaeus (Frag. 35, ed. 
Stieren), Origen in a Latin version twice (Opp. iii. 948 ; iv. 
483), the Apostolical Constitutions (vi. 15), Eusebius 
twice (In Isa. i. 16, 17; iii. 1, 2; Migne xxiv. 96, 109), 
Pseud-Athanasius (Qncest. ad Antioch. 101, Opp. ii. 291), 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Ephraem Syrus (De Pcenit. Opp. iii. 183), Chrysostom five 
times (Opp. iv. 681 (789); viii. 143 de (165), I44 d (165), 144 b 
(166)), Theodoret (Quczst. in Num. 35, Migne lxxx. 385), 
Basil of Seleucia (Orat. xxviii. 3}, Anastasius Sinaita in 
a Latin version three times (Migne lxxxix. 870, 906, 916), 
Hesychius of Jerusalem in a Latin version twice (Migne 
xciii. 974, 1044), Theodorus Abucara (Opuscc. c. 17, Migne 
xcvii. 1 541), Tertullian (De Bapt. c. 13), Anon. De Rebap- 
tismate (c. 3), Philastrius (Hcer. 120 and 148, ed. Oehler), 
Chromatius (In Matt. iii. 14, Migne xx. 329), Jerome twice 
(Dp. 69, al. 83, and In Isa. i. 16; Migne xxii. 660, xxv. 35), 
Augustine seven times (Opp. ii. 1360, 1 361 ; v. 1745 ; vi. 
327 ; vii. 528 ; ix. 630; x. 207, ed. Bened. 2da), and a host of 
other Latin Fathers. 

It should be observed that many of the writers whom I 
have cited combine three or four of these variations from 
John. It may be well to give, further, some additional illus- 
trations of the freedom with which this passage is sometimes 
quoted and combined with others. One example has already 
been given from Clement of Alexandria. (See No. 2.) Ter- 
tullian (De Bapt. 12) quotes it thus: "The Lord says, 
Except a man shall be born of water, he hath not life" — Nisi 
natus ex aqua quis erit, non habet vitam. Similarly Odo 
Cluniacensis (Mor. in yob. iii. 4, Migne cxxxiii. 135): "Ve- 
ritas autem dicit, Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu 
sancto, non habet vitam aternam!' Anastasius Sinaita, as 
preserved in a Latin version (Anagog. Contempt, in Hexaem. 
lib. v., Migne lxxxix. 916), quotes the passage as follows: 
"dicens, Nisi quis fuerit generatus ex aqua et Spiritu qui 
fertur super aquam, non intrabit in regnum ccelorum" The 
Apostolical Constitutions (vi. 15) as edited by Cotelier 
and Ueltzen read : " For the Lord saith, Except a man be 
baptized with (jSa-rm&y kg) water and the Spirit, he shall in 
no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven!' Here, indeed, 
Lagarde, with two MSS., edits yewTfty for pam-iofty, but the 
more difficult reading may well be genuine. Compare 
Euthymius Zigabenus (Panopl. pars ii. tit. 23, Adv. Bogo- 
milos, c. 16, in the Latin version in Max. Bibl. Patrum, xix. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 5 7 



224), " Nisi quis baptizatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu sancto, 
non intrabit in regnum Dei," and see Jeremy Taylor, as 
quoted below. Didymus of Alexandria gives as the words 
of Christ (si-i:v tie), " Ye must be born of water" (De Trin. ii. 
12, p. 250, Migne xxxix. 672). It will be seen that all these 
examples purport to be express quotations. 

My principal object in this long discussion has been to 
show how false is the assumption on which the author of 
Supernatural Religion proceeds in his treatment of Justin's 
quotations, and those of other early Christian writers. But 
the fallacy of his procedure may, perhaps, be made more 
striking by some illustrations of the way in which the very 
passage of John which we have been considering is quoted 
by a modern English writer. I have noted nine quotations 
of the passage by Jeremy Taylor, who is not generally sup- 
posed to have used many apocryphal Gospels. All of these 
differ from the common English version, and only two of 
them are alike. They exemplify all the peculiarities of vari- 
ation from the common text upon which the writers of the 
Tubingen school and others have laid such stress as proving 
that Justin cannot have here quoted John. I will number 
these quotations, with a reference to the volume and page 
in which they occur in Heber's edition of Jeremy Taylor's 
Works, London, 1828, 15 vols. 8vo, giving also such specifi- 
cations as may enable one to find the passages in any other 
edition of his complete Works ; and, without copying them 
all in full, will state their peculiarities. No. 1. Life of Christ, 
Part I. Sect. IX. Disc. VI. Of Baptism, part i. § 12. Heber, 
vol. ii. p. 240. — No. 2. Ibid. Disc. VI. Of baptizing Infants, 
part ii. § 26. Heber, ii. 288. — No. 3. Ibid. § 32. Heber, ii. 
292. — No. 4. Liberty of Prophesying, Sect. XVIII. § 7. 
Heber, viii. 153. — No. 5. Ibid, Ad 7. Heber, viii. 190. — No. 
6. Ibid. Ad 18. Heber, viii. 191. — No. 7. Ibid. Ad 18. 
Heber, viii. 193. — No. 8. Disc, of Confirm. Sect. I. Heber, 
xi. 238. — No. 9. Ibid. Heber, xi. 244. 

We may notice the following points : — 

I. He has "unless" for "except," uniformly. This is a 
trifling variation ; but, reasoning after the fashion of Super- 



158 INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

natural Religion, we should say that this uniformity of vari- 
ation could not be referred to accident, but proved that he 
quoted from a different text from that of the authorized 
version. 

2. He has ''kingdom of heaven" for "kingdom of God" 
six times ; viz., Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7. 

3. "Heaven" simply for "kingdom of God" once; No. 6. 

4. " Shall not enter" for "cannot enter " four times ; Nos. 
4, 5, 7, 8; comp. also No. 6. 

5. The second person plural,^, for the third person sin- 
gular, twice ; Nos. 3, 7. 

6. "Baptized with water" for " born of water" once; 
No. 7. 

7. "Born again by water" for "born of water" once ; 
No. 6. 

8. "Both of water and the Spirit " for " of water and of the 
Spirit" once ; No. 9. 

9. "Of" is omitted before "the Spirit" six times; Nos. 
1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8. 

10. "Holy" is inserted before "Spirit" twice; Nos. 1, 8. 
No. 1 reads, for example, " Unless a man be born of water 

and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
heaven." 

Supernatural Religion insists that, when Justin uses such 
an expression as " Christ said," we may expect a verbally 
accurate quotation.* Now nothing is more certain than that 
the Christian Fathers frequently use such a formula when 
they mean to give merely the substance of what Christ said, 
and not the exact words ; but let us apply our author's prin- 
ciple to Jeremy Taylor. No. 3 of his quotations reads thus : 

"Therefore our Lord hath defined it, Unless ye be born of 
water and the Spirit, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of 
heaven!' 

No. 6 reads, " Though Christ said, None but those that are 
born again by water and the Spirit shall enter into heaven" 
No. 7 reads, " For Christ never said, Unless ye be baptized 



* " Justin, in giving the words of Jesus, clearly professed to make an exact quotation." — Su- 
pernatural Religion, ii. 309, 7th ed. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



159 



with fire and the Spirit, ye shall not enter into the kingdom 
of heaven, but of water and the Spirit he did say it!' 

I will add one quotation from the Book of Common Prayer, 
which certainly must be quoting from another apocryphal 
Gospel, different from those used by Jeremy Taylor (he evi- 
dently had several), inasmuch as -it professes to give the very 
words of Christ, and gives them twice in precisely the same 
form : — • 

" Our Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the 
kingdom of God except he be regenerate and born anew of 
water and of the Holy Ghost." {Public Baptism of Infants, 
and Baptism of those of Riper Years) 

It has been shown, I trust, that in this quotation of the 
language of Christ respecting regeneration the verbal differ- 
ences between Justin and John are not such as to render it 
improbable that the former borrowed from the latter. The 
variations of phraseology are easily accounted for, and are 
matched by similar variations in writers who unquestionably 
used the Gospel of John. 

The positive reasons for believing that Justin derived his 
quotation from this source are, (1) the fact that in no other 
report of the teaching of Christ except that of John do we 
find this figure of the new birth ; (2) the insistence in both 
Justin and John on the necessity of the new birth to an en- 
trance into the kingdom of heaven ; (3) its mention in both 
in connection with baptism ; (4) and last and most important 
of all, the fact that Justin's remark on the impossibility of a 
second natural birth is such a platitude in the form in which 
he presents it, that we cannot regard it as original. We can 
only explain its introduction by supposing that the language 
of Christ which he quotes was strongly associated in his 
memory with the question of Nicoclemus as recorded by 
John.* Other evidences of the use of the Fourth Gospel by 
Justin are the following : — 

(a) While Justin's conceptions in regard to the Logos were 
undoubtedly greatly affected by Philo and the Alexandrian 



*Engelhardt in his recent work on Justin observes: " This remark sets aside all doubt of the 
reference to the fourth Gospel." — Das Christenthum Justins des Martyr ers, Erlangen, 1878, 



l6o INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

philosophy, the doctrine of the incarnation of the Logos was 
utterly foreign to that philosophy, and could only have been 
derived, it would seem, from the Gospel of John. He ac- 
cordingly speaks very often in language similar to that of 
John (i. 14) of the Logos as "made flesh,"* or as "having 
become man." f That in the last phrase he should prefer 
the term "man" to the Hebraistic "flesh" can excite no 
surprise. With reference to the deity of the Logos and his 
instrumental agency in creation, compare also especially 
Apol. ii. 6, "through him God created all things " (6c' avrov -dvra 
bktlgs), Dial. c. 56, and Apol. i. 63, with John i. 1-3. Since 
the Fathers who immediately followed Justin, as Theophilus, 
Irenseus, Clement, Tertullian, unquestionably founded their 
doctrine of the incarnation of the Logos on the Gospel of 
John, the presumption is that Justin did the same. He pro- 
fesses to hold his view, in which he owns that some Chris- 



p. 350. Weizsacker is equally strong. — Untersuchungen iiber die evang. Geschichte, Gotha, 
1864, pp. 228, 229. 

Dr. Edwin A. Abbott, in the very interesting article Gospels in vol. x. of the ninth edition of 
the Encyclopaedia Britannica, objects that Justin cannot have quoted the Fourth Gospel here, 
because "he is arguing for baptism by water" and "it is inconceivable that . . . he should not 
only quote inaccurately, but omit the very words [John iii. 5] that were best adapted to support 
his argument." (p. S21.) But Justin is not addressing an " argument " to the Roman Emperor 
and Senate for the necessity of baptism by water, but simply giving an account of Christian rites 
and Christian worship. And it is not the mere rite of baptism by water as such, but the necessity 
of the new birth through repentance and a voluntary change of life 011 the part of him who dedi- 
cates himself to God by this rite, on which Justin lays the main stress, — "the baptism of the soul 
from wrath and covetousness, envy and hatred." (Comp. Dial. cc. 13, 14, 18.) Moreover, the 
simple word avayevv?j6?jTe, as he uses it in the immediate context, and as it was often used, 
includes the idea of baptism. This fact alone answers the objection. A perusal of the chapter in 
which Justin treats the subject {Apol. i. 61) will show that it was not at all necessary to his pur- 
pose in quoting the words of Christ to introduce the £z vSarog. It would almost seem as if 
Dr. Abbott must have been thinking of the Clementine Homilies (xi. 24-27; xiii. 21), where 
excessive importance is attached to the mere element of water. 

* aapKOTTO'JfOelg ; e.g., Apol. c. 32, 6 Aoyof, dg rtva rp6~ov aapKO~ou/6elg avOpuirog 
yeyovev. So c. 66 bis ; Dial. cc. 45, 84, 87, 100. Comp. Dial. cc. 48 ("was born a man of like 
nature with us, having flesh "), 70 (" became embodied "). 

i avdpUnOQ yevouevoQ ; Apol. i. cc. 5 ("the Logos himself who took form and became 
man"), 23 bis, 32, 42, 50, 53, 63 bis; Apol. ii. c. 13; Dial. cc. 48, 57, 64, 67, 68 bis, 76, 85, 100, 
101, 125 bis. I have availed myself in this and the preceding note of the references given by Pro- 
fessor Drummond in his article "Justin Martyr and the Fourth Gospel," in the Theol. Review for 
April and July, 1877; see vol. xiv., p. 172. To this valuable essay I am much indebted, and shall 
have occasion to refer to it repeatedly. Professor Drummond compares at length Justin's doctrine 
of the Logos with that of the proem to the Fourth Gospel, and decides rightly, I think, that the 
statement of the former " is, beyond all question, in a more developed form ' ' than that of the latter. 
In John it is important to observe that Xoyoq is used with a meaning derived from the sense of 
"word " rather than " reason," as in Philo and Justin. The subject is too large to be entered 
upon here. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. l6l 

tians do not agree with him, " because we have been com- 
manded by Christ himself not to follow the doctrines of men, 
but those which were proclaimed by the blessed prophets 
and taught by him." {Dial. c. 48.) Now, as Canon Westcott 
observes, "the Synoptists do not anywhere declare Christ's 
pre-existence." * And where could Justin suppose himself 
to have found this doctrine taught by Christ except in the 
Fourth Gospel ? Compare Apol. i. 46 : " That Christ is the 
first-born of God, being the Logos [the divine Reason] of 
which every race of men have been partakers [comp. John i. 
4> 5> 9] ? we have been taitgJit and have declared before. And 
those who have lived according to Reason are Christians, 
even though they were deemed atheists ; as, for example, 
Socrates and Heraclitus and those like them among the 
Greeks." 

(b) But more may be said. In one place (Dial. c. 105) 
Justin, according to the natural construction of his language 
and the course of his argument, appears to refer to the 
" Memoirs " as the source from which he and other Chris- 
tians had learnt that Christ as the Logos was the " only- 
begotten " Son of God, a title applied to him by John alone 
among the New Testament writers ; see John i. 14, 18 ; iii. 
16, 18. The passage reads, " For that he was the only- 
begotten of the Father of the universe, having been begotten 
by him in a peculiar manner as his Logos and Power, and 
having afterwards become man through the virgin, as we have 
learned from the Memoirs, I showed before." It is possible 
that the clause, "as we have learned from the Memoirs," 
refers not to the main proposition of the sentence, but only 
to the fact of the birth from a virgin ; but the context as 
well as the natural construction leads to a different view, 
as Professor Drummond has ably shown in the article in 
the Theological Review (xiv. 178-182) already referred to in 
a note. He observes : — 

" The passage is part of a very long comparison, which Justin insti- 
tutes between the twenty-second Psalm and the recorded events of 



*"Introd. to the Gospel of St. John," in Tlie Holy Bible*. . . with . . . Commentary, etc., 
ed. by F. C Cook, N. T. vol. ii. (1880), p. lxxxiv. 
22 



l62 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Christ's life. For the purposes of this comparison he refers to or 
quotes " the Gospel " once, and " the Memoirs " ten times, and further 
refers to the latter three times in the observations which immediately 
follow. . . . They are appealed to here because they furnish the succes- 
sive steps of the proof by which the Psalm is shown to be prophetic." 

In this case the words in the Psalm (xxii. 20, 21) which 
have to be illustrated are, " Deliver my soul from the sword, 
and my only-begotten [Justin perhaps read "thy only- 
begotten "] from the power of the dog. Save me from the 
mouth of the lion, and my humiliation from the horns of 
unicorns." "These words," Justin remarks, "are again in a 
similar manner a teaching and prophecy of the things that 
belonged to him [w bvruv avr&\ and that were going to hap- 
pen. For that he was the only-begotten," etc., as quoted 
above. Professor Drummond well observes : — 

" There is here no ground of comparison whatever except in the word 
fiovoyevyq [ " only-begotten "]. ... It is evident that Justin understood 
this as referring to Christ ; and accordingly he places the same word 
emphatically at the beginning of the sentence in which he proves the 
reference of this part of the Psalm to Jesus. For the same reason he 
refers not only to events, but to ra bvra avrti [" the things that belonged 
to him "]. These are taken up first in the nature and title of /Ltovoyevfc, 
which immediately suggests /ioyog and dvvajutg Jj" Logos " and "power"], 
while the events are introduced and discussed afterwards. The allusion 
here to the birth through the virgin has nothing to do with the quotation 
from the Old Testament, and is probably introduced simply to show how 
Christ, although the only-begotten Logos, was nevertheless a man. If 
the argument were, — These words allude to Christ, because the Me- 
moirs tell us that he was born from a virgin, — it would be utterly inco- 
herent. If it were, — These words allude to Christ, because the Me- 
moirs say that he was the only-begotten, — it would be perfectly valid 
from Justin's point of view. It would not, however, be suitable for a 
Jew, for whom the fact that Christ was f-wvoyevyg, not being an historical 
event, had to rest upon other authority ; and therefore Justin changing his 
usual form, says that he had already explained to him a doctrine which 
the Christians learned from the Memoirs. It appears to me, then, most 
probable, that the peculiar Johannine title fiovoyevqg existed in the Gos- 
pels used by Justin. * 

In what follows, Prof. Drummond answers Thoma's ob- 



* Justin also designates Christ as "the only-begotten Son" in a fragment of his work against 
Marcion, preserved by Irenaeus, Hcer. iv. 6. §2. Comp. Justin, Apol. i. c. 23; ii. c. 6; 
Dial. c. 48. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 63 



jections* to this view of the passage, correcting some mis- 
translations. In the expression, " as I showed before," the 
reference may be, not to c. 100, but to c. 61 and similar pas- 
sages, where it is argued that the Logos was ''begotten by 
God before all creatures," which implies a unique generation. 

(c) In the Dialogue with Trypho (c. 88), Justin cites as 
the words of John the Baptist : " I am not the Christ, but 
the voice of one crying " ; ovk el/ui 6 Xpic-6g : hl\a <pov?) fio&vrog. 
This declaration, " I am not the Christ," and this application 
to himself of the language of Isaiah, are attributed to the 
Baptist only in the Gospel of John (i. 20, 23 ; comp. iii. 28). 
Hilgenfeld recognizes here the use of this Gospel. 

(d) Justin says of the Jews, "They are justly upbraided . . . 
by Christ himself as knowing neither the Father nor the 
Son" (Apol. i. 63). Comp. John viii. 19, " Ye neither know 
me nor my Father " ; and xvi. 3, " They have not known the 
Father nor me." It is true that Justin quotes in this con- 
nection Matt. xi. 27 ; but his language seems to be in- 
fluenced by the passages in John above cited, in which alone 
the Jews are directly addressed. 

(e) Justin says that " Christ healed those who were blind 
from their birth," -org m yeveryg TTTjporg (Dial. c. 49; comp. 
Apol. i. 22, m yeveryg novr/povg, where several editors, though 
not Otto, would substitute jnjpovg by conjecture). There 
seems to be a reference here to John ix. 1, where we have 
rvf/Mv £K yeveryg, the phrase enyeverf/g^ " from birth," being pecu- 
liar to John among the Evangelists, and 7r?/ P 6c being a com- 
mon synonym e of rvf/.6g- comp. the Apostolical Constitutions 
v. 7. § 17, where we have 6 u yeveryg irripdg in a clear reference 



*In Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift fur wiss. Theol., 1875, xviii. 551 ff. For other discussions of 
this passage, one may see Semisch, Die apost. Dejikwurdigkeiten u.s.w., p. 188 f. ; Hilgenfeld, 
Krit. Unterstichungeii u.s.w., p. 300 f. (versus Semisch); Riggenbach, Die Zetiguisse f. d. Ev. 
Jokannis, Basel, 1866, p. 163 f.; Tischendorf, Wann wtirden unsere Evangelien verfasst? 
p. 32, 4e Aufl. But Professor Drummond's treatment of the question is the most thorough. 

Grimm (Theol. Siud. u. Krit., 1851, p. 687 ff.) agrees with Semisch that it is " in the highest 
degree arbitrary" to refer Justin's expression, " as we have learned from the Memoirs," merely 
to the participial clause which mentions the birth from a virgin ; but like Thoma, who agrees 
with him that the reft rence is to the designation " only-begotten," he thinks that Justin has in 
mind merely the confession of Peter (Matt. xvi. 16), referred to in Dial. c. 100. This rests on the 
false assumption that Justin can only be referring back to c. 100, and makes him argue that "the 
Son " merely is equivalent to "the only-begotten Son." 



164 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



to this passage of John, and the Clementine Homilies xix. 
22, where nepl tov m yeveryg Trqpov occurs also in a similar 
reference.* John is the only Evangelist who mentions the 
healing of any congenital infirmity. 

(/) The exact coincidence between Justin (Apol. i. 52 ; 
comp. Dial. cc. 14 (quoted as from Hosed), 32, 64, 118) and 
John (xix. 37) in citing Zechariah xii. 10 in a form different 
from the Septuagint, ofovrai elg bv e^eicevriiaav, " they shall 
look on him whom they pierced," instead of h-ip.H>ovrai ^pbc pk 
avd' av KarupxyoavTo, is remarkable, and not sufficiently ex- 
plained by supposing both to have borrowed from Rev. i. 7, 
"every eye shall see him, and they who pierced him." 
Much stress has been laid on this coincidence by Semisch 
(p. 200 ff.) and Teschendorf (p. 34) ; but it is possible, if not 
rather probable, that Justin and John have independently 
followed a reading of the Septuagint which had already 
attained currency in the first century as a correction of the 
text in conformity with the Hebrew. f 

(g) Compare Apol. i. 13 (cited by Prof. Drummond, p. 323), 
"Jesus Christ who became our teacher of these things and 
was bom to this end («c rovro yewrfikvra^ who was crucified 
under Pontius Pilate," with Christ's answer to Pilate (John 
xviii. 37), "To this end have I been born, elg tovto yeyevwyiai, 
. . . that I might bear witness to the truth." 

(h) Justin says (Dial. c. 56, p. 276 D), " I affirm that he 
never did or spake any thing but what he that made the 
world, above whom there is no other God, willed that he 
should both do and speak "; J' comp. John viii. 28, 29: "As 

*The context in Justin, as Otto justly remarks, proves that Tziipovc must here signify 
" blind," not "maimed " ; comp. the quotation from Isa. xxxv. 5, which precedes, and the " causing 
this one to see," which follows. Keim's exclamation — "not a blind man at all! " — would have 
been spared, if he had attended to this. (See his Gesch. Jesu von Nazara, i. 139, note; i. 189, 
Eng. trans.) 

t See Credner, Beitrage u.s.w., ii. 293 ff. 

J Dr. Davidson {Introd. to the Study of the V. 7"., London, 1S6S, ii. 370) translates the last 
clause, " intended that he should do and to associate with" (sic). Though the meaning "to 
converse with," and then "to speak," " to say," is not assigned to buiAelv in Liddell and Scott, 
or Rost and Palm's edition of Passow, Justin in the very next sentence uses AaAelv as an equiva- 
lent substitute, and this meaning is common in the later Greek. See Sophocles, Greek Lex. s.v. 
bfllkiu. Of Dr. Davidson's translation I must confess my inability to make either grammar or 
sense. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 65 



the Father taught me, I speak these things ; and ... I 
always do the things that please him " ; also John iv. 34; v. 
19, 30; vii. 16; xii. 49, 50. In the language of Trypho 
which immediately follows (p. 277 A), " We do not suppose 
that you represent him to have said or done or spoken any- 
thing contrary to the will of the Creator of the universe," 
we are particularly reminded of John xii. 49, — "The Father 
who sent me hath himself given me a commandment, what I 
should say and what I should speak." 

(i) Referring to a passage of the Old Testament as signi- 
fying that Christ " was to rise from the dead on the third 
day after his crucifixion," Justin subjoins (Dial. c. 100), 
"which he received from his Father," or more literally, 
"which [thing] he has, having received it from his Father," 
u cittu rod ncirpuc lapdv tyst. A reference here to John x. 18 
seems probable, where Jesus says respecting his life, "I 
have authority (efwomv) to lay it down, and I have authority 
to receive it again (nakiv Xafciv av-H/v) ; this charge I received 

from my Father " (f/ia.Sov irapa tov itarp6g fiov). 

(k) Justin says, " We were taught that the bread and 
wine were the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made 
flesh." (Apol. i. c. 66.) This use of the term "flesh " instead 
of "body" in describing the bread of the Eucharist suggests 
John vi. 5 1-56. 

(/) Professor Drummond notes that Justin, like John (iii. 
14, 15), regards the elevation of the brazen serpent in the 
wilderness as typical of the crucifixion (Apol. i. c. 60 ; Dial. 
cc. 91, 94, 131), and in speaking of it says that it denoted 
" salvation to those who flee for refuge to him who sent his 
crucified Son into the world" (Dial. c. 91).* "Now this 
idea of God's sending his Son into the world occurs in the 
same connection in John iii. 17, and strange as it may ap- 
pear, it is an idea which in the New Testament is peculiar 
to John." Prof. Drummond further observes that "in the 
four instances in which John speaks of Christ as being sent 
into the world, he prefers aTroarelXu, so that Justin's phrase is 



* Or, as it is expressed in Dial. c. 94, " salvation to those who believe in him who was to die 
through this sign, the cross," which comes nearer to John iii. 15. 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



not entirely coincident with the Johannine. But the use of 
Tre/nto) ["to send"] itself is curious. Except by John, it is 
applied to Christ in the New Testament only twice, whereas 
John uses it [thus] twenty-five times. Justin's language, 
therefore, in the thought which it expresses, in the selec- 
tion of words, and in its connection, is closely related to 
John's, and has no other parallel in the New Testament." 
(Theol. Rev. xiv. 324.) Compare also Dial. c. 140, "accord- 
ing to the will of the Father who sent him," etc., and Dial. 
c. 17, "the only blameless and righteous Light sent from 
God to men." 

{in) Liicke, Otto, Semisch, Keim, Mangold, and Drum- 
mond are disposed to find a reminiscence of John i. 13 in 
Justin's language where, after quoting from Genesis xlix. 11, 
he says, " since his blood was not begotten of human seed, 
but by the will of God" (Dial. c. 63; comp. the similar 
language Apol. i. 32; Dial. cc. 54, "by the power of God"; 
76). They suppose that Justin referred John i. 13 to Christ, 
following an early reading of the passage, namely, bq . . . 
eyewrjOri, "who was born " [or "begotten"] instead of "who 
were born." We find this reading in Irenseus (Hcer. iii. 16. 
§ 2; 19. § 2), Tertullian (De Came Christi cc. 19, 24), 
Ambrose once, Augustine once, also in Codex Veronensis 
(b) of the Old Latin, and some other authorities. Tertullian 
indeed boldly charges the Valentinians with corrupting the 
text by changing the singular to the plural. Ronsch, whom 
no one will call an "apologist," remarks, "The citation of 
these words . . . certainly belongs to the proofs that Justin 
Martyr knew the Gospel of John." * I have noticed this, in 
deference to these authorities, but am not confident that 
there is any reference in Justin's language to John i. 13. 

{11) Justin says (Dial. c. 88), "The Apostles have written" 
that at the baptism of Jesus " as he came up from the water 
the Holy Spirit as a dove lighted upon him." The descent 
of the Holy Spirit as a dove is mentioned by the Apostles 
Matthew and John (Matt. iii. 16; John i. 32, 33). This is 



* Das neue Testament Terhdlians, Leipz. 1871, p. 654. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 167 



the only place in which Justin uses the expression " the 
Apostles have written." 

(o) Justin says {Dial. c. 103) that Pilate sent Jesus to 
Herod bound. The binding is not mentioned by Luke ; but 
if Justin used the Gospel of John, the mistake is easily 
explained through a confusion in memory of Luke xxiii. 7 
with John xviii. 24 (comp. ver. 12) ; and this seems the most 
natural explanation ; see however Matt, xxvii. 2 ; Mark xv. 1. 
Examples of such a confusion of different passages repeatedly 
occur in Justin's quotations from the Old Testament, as also 
of his citing the Old Testament for facts which it does not 
contain.* 

(p) The remark of Justin that the Jews dared to call 
Jesus a magician (comp. Matt. ix. 34 ; xii. 24) and a deceiver 
of the people (Xadwlavov) reminds one strongly of John vii. 12 ; 
see however also Matt, xxvii. 63. — " Through his stripes," 
says Justin (Dial. c. 17), "there is healing to those who 
through him come to the Father," which suggests John xiv. 
6, " No man cometh to the Father but through me"; but 
the reference is uncertain; comp. Eph. ii. 18, and Heb. vii. 
25 with the similar expression in Dial. c. 43. — So also 

it is not clear that in the 7rpocKvvov/j.ev, Aoyo) ml aArjtida TtfiQvreg 

(Apol. i. 6) there is any allusion to John iv. 24. f — I pass 
» over sundry passages where Bindemann, Otto, Semisch, 
Thoma, Drummond and others have found resemblances 
more or less striking between the language of Justin and 

*See, for example, Apol. i. 44, where the words in Deut. xxx. 15, 19, are represented as 
addressed to Adam (comp. Gen. ii. 16, 17); and Apol. i. 60, where Justin refers to Num. xxi. 
8, 9 for various particulars found only in his own imagination. The extraordinary looseness with 
which he quotes Plato here (as elsewhere) may also be noted (see the TimcEiis c. 12, p. 36 B, C). 
On Justin's quotations from the Old Testament, which are largely marked by the same character- 
istics as his quotations from the Gospels, see Credner, Beitrdge u.s.w., vol. ii. (1838); Norton, 
Genuineness etc., i. 213 ff., and Addit. Notes, p. ccxviii. ff., 2ded., i846(ist ed. 1837); Semisch, Die 
apost. Detikwilrdigkeiten u.s.w. (1848), p. 239 ff. ; Hilgenfeld, Krit. U titer sue hun gen (1850), 
p. 46 ff. ; Westcott, Cation, p. 121 ff., 172 ff., 4th ed. (1875); Sanday, The Gospels in the Second 
Century (1876), pp. 40 ff., in ff. 

t Grimm, however, finds here "an unmistakable reminiscence" of John iv. 24. He thinks 
Justin used Aoyo) for irvevflCLTl and rc/nuvreg for TrpoGKWOVvreg because irvevjia and 
irpoOKVVOvijLEV immediately precede. (Theol. Stud. u. Krit., 1851, p. 691.) But AoyG) ml 
aArjSeia seem to mean simply, "in accordance with reason and truth"; comp. Apol. i. 68, cited 
by Otto, also c. 13, /xera Aoyov Ttfttifiev. 



i68 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



John, leaving them to the not very tender mercies of Zeller * 
and Hilgenfeld. f 

(q) Justin's vindication of Christians for not keeping the 
Jewish Sabbath on the ground that " God has carried on the 
same administration of the universe during that day as 
during all others " (Dial. c. 29, comp. c. 23) is, as Mr. Norton 
observes, " a thought so remarkable, that there can be little 
doubt that he borrowed it from what was said by our Saviour 
when the Jews were enraged at his having performed a 
miracle on the Sabbath : — ' My Father has been working 
hitherto as I am working.' " — His argument also against the 
observance of the Jewish Sabbath from the fact that circum- 
cision was permitted on that day may (Dial. c. 27) have been 
borrowed from John vii. 22, 23. 

(r) I will notice particularly only one more passage, in 
which Professor Drummond proposes an original and very 
plausible explanation of a difficulty. In the larger Apology 
(c. 35), as he observes, the following words are quoted from 
Isaiah (lviii. 2), alrovai p,e vvv Kpiciv, "they now ask of me 
judgment " ; and in evidence that this prophecy was fulfilled 
in Christ, Justin asserts, " they mocked him, and set him on 
the judgment-seat (kuddiaav k-i ^fiarog), and said, Judge for 
us." This proceeding is nowhere recorded in our Gospels, 
but in John xix. 13 we read, " Pilate therefore brought Jesus 
out, and sat on the judgment-seat" (ml snadicev ettI (5?j/narog). 
But the words just quoted in the Greek, the correspondence 
of which with those of Justin will be noticed, admit in them- 
selves the rendering, "and set him on the judgment-seat"; 
and what was more natural, as Prof. Drummond remarks, 
than that Justin, in his eagerness to find a fulfilment of the 
prophecy, should take them in this sense? "He might then 
add the statement that the people said npivov f/iiiv ['judge 
for us '] as an obvious inference from the fact of Christ's 
having been placed on the tribunal, just as in an earlier 
chapter (c. 32) he appends to the synoptic account the circum- 

* Die ausseren Zeugnisse . . . des vierten Evang., in the Theol. Jahrbiicher (Tubingen) 
1845, p. 600 ff. 

f Kritische U 'titer ■ suckling en u.s.w., p. 302 f. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 169 

stance that the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem was 
bound to a vine, in order to bring the event into connection 
with Genesis xlix. 1 1." (Theol. Review, xiv. 328.) 

These evidences of Justin's use of the Gospel of John are 
strengthened somewhat by an indication, which has been 
generally overlooked, of his use of the First Epistle of John. 
In 1 John iii. 1 we read, according to the text now adopted 
by the best critics, as Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, 
Alford, Westcott and Hort, " Behold what love the Father 
hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children 

of God ; and we are SO " ; Iva tekvu deov tiAqOafieVj nal efffiev. 

This addition to the common text, ml kofiev, "and we are," 
is supported by a great preponderance of external evidence. 
Compare now Justin {Dial. c. 123) : "We are both called true 
children of God, and we are so " ; m\ deov -eava afydiva nalovjueda 
Kol hafiev. The coincidence seems too remarkable to be acci- 
dental. Hilgenfeld takes the same view (Einleit. in d. N. T., 
p. 69), and so Ewald (Die johan. Schriften, ii. 395, Anm. 4). 

It also deserves to be considered that, as Justin wrote a 
work "Against all Heresies" (Apol. i. 26), among which he 
certainly included those of Valentinus and Basilides (Dial. 
c. 35), he could hardly have been ignorant of a book which, 
according to Irenaeus, the Valentinians used plenissime, and 
to which the Basilidians and apparently Basilides himself 
also appealed (Hippol. Ref. Hczr. vii. 22, 27). Credner 
recognizes the weight of this argument.* It can only be 
met by maintaining what is altogether improbable, that 
merely the later Valentinians and Basilidians made use of 
the Gospel, — a point which we shall examine hereafter. 

In judging of the indications of Justin's use of the Fourth 
Gospel, the passages cited in addition to those which relate 
to his Logos doctrine will strike different persons differently. 
There will be few, however, I think, who will not feel that 
the one first discussed (that relating to the new birth) is in 
itself almost a decisive proof of such a use, and that the one 
relating to John the Baptist (c) is also strong. In regard to 



* Geschichte des mutest. Kanon (i860), p. 15 f. ; comp. pp. 9, 12. 

23 



170 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



not a few others, while the possibility of accidental agree- 
ment must be conceded, the probability is decidedly against 
this, and the accumulated probabilities form an argument of 
no little weight. It is not then, I belieA~e, too much to say, 
that the strong presumption from the universal reception of 
our four Gospels as sacred books in the time of Irenaeus that 
Justin's " Memoirs of Christ composed by Apostles and their 
companions " were the same books, is decidedly confirmed 
by these evidences of his use of the Fourth Gospel. We 
will next consider the further confirmation of this fact 
afforded by Avriters who flourished between the time of 
Justin and Irenaeus, and then notice some objections to the 
view which has been presented. 

The most weighty testimony is that of Tatian, the Assyr- 
ian, a disciple of Justin. His literary activity may be placed 
at about a.d. 155-170 (Lightfoot). In his "Address to the 
Greeks " he repeatedly quotes the Fourth Gospel, though 
without naming the author, in one case using the expression 
(to slpTjfievov) which is several times employed in the New 
Testament (e.g. Acts ii. 16; Rom. iv. 18) in introducing a 
quotation from the Scriptures; see his Oral, ad Grcec. c. 13, 
" And this then is that which hath been said, The darkness 
comprehendeth [or overcometh] not the light " (John i. 5) ; 
see also c. 19 (John i. 3) ; c. 4 (John iv. 24).* Still more 
important is the fact that he composed a Harmony of our 
Four Gospels which he called the Diatessaron (i.e. "the 
Gospel made out of Four"). This fact is attested by Euse- 
bius (Hist. Eccl. iv. 29),! Epiphanius (Hcer. xlvi. 1), who, 
however, writes from hearsay, and Theodoret, who in his 
work on Heresies (H&r. Fab. i. 20) says that he found more 
than two hundred copies of the book held in esteem in his 
diocese, and substituted for it copies of our Four Gospels. 

* Even Zeller does not dispute that Tatian quotes the Fourth Gospel, and ascribed it to the 
Apostle John. (T/ieol. Jahrb. 1847, p. 158.) 

t An expression used by Eusebius (ovk. offi bito£ } literally, "I know not how") has been 
misunderstood by many as implying that he had not seen the work ; but Lightfoot has shown 
conclusively that this inference is wholly unwarranted. It only implies that the plan of the work 
seemed strange to him. See Contemporary Review for May, 1877, p. 1136, where Lightfoot 
cites 26 examples of this use of the phrase from the work of Ongen against Celsus. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



171 



He tells us that Tatian, who is supposed to have prepared 
the Harmony after he became a Gnostic Encratite, had " cut 
away the genealogies and such other passages as show the 
Lord to have been born of the seed of David after the flesh." 
But notwithstanding this mutilation, the work seems to have 
been very popular in the orthodox churches of Syria as a 
convenient compendium. The celebrated Syrian Father, 
Ephraem, the deacon of Edessa, who died a.d. 373, wrote a 
commentary on it, according to Dionysius Bar-Salibi, who 
flourished in the last part of the twelfth century. Bar-Salibi 
was well acquainted with the work, citing it in his own 
Commentary on the Gospels, and distinguishing it from the 
Diatessaron of Ammonius, and from a later work by Elias 
Salamensis, also called Aphthonius. He mentions that it 
began with John i. 1 — "In the beginning was the Word." 
(See Assemani, Biblioth. Orient, ii. 158 ff.) Besides Eph- 
raem, Aphraates, an earlier Syrian Father (a.d. 337) appears 
to have used it (Horn. i. p. 13 ed. Wright) ; and in the Doc- 
trine of Addai, an apocryphal Syriac work, written probably 
not far from the middle of the third century, which purports 
to give an account of the early history of Christianity at 
Edessa, the people are represented as coming together " to 
the prayers of the service, and to [the reading of] the Old 
Testament and the New of the Diatessaron." * The Doe- 
trine of Addai does not name the author of the Diatessaron 
thus read ; but the facts already mentioned make the pre- 
sumption strong that it was Tatian's. A scholion on Cod. 
72 of the Gospels cites "Tatian's Gospel" for a remarkable 
reading of Matt, xxvii. 49 found in many ancient MSS. ; and 



*In Cureton's Ancient Syriac Documents (Lond. 1864) the text, published from a MS. in 
the British Museum, is here corrupt, reading Ditonron, a word without meaning ; comp. Pratten's 
Syriac Documents (1871), p. 25, note, in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. xx. Cureton 
conjectured that the true reading was Diatessaron (see his note, p. 158), and his conjecture is 
confirmed by the St. Petersburg MS. published by Dr. George Phillips, The Doctrine of Addai, 
London, 1876; see his note, p. 34 f. Cureton's Syriac text (p. 15), as well as his translation 
(p. 15), reads Ditonron, not Ditomo7i, as Lightfoot, Pratten, and Phillips erroneously state, 
being misled by a misprint in Cureton's note. Phillips gives the reading correctly in the note to 
his Syriac text (p. 36). Moesinger, in the work described below, is also misled, spelling the word 
Diathurnun (Praef. p. iv). The difference between Ditonron and Diatessaro?i in the Syriac is 
very slight, affecting only a single letter. 



172 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



it is also cited for a peculiar reading of Luke vii. 42.* So 
far the evidence is clear, consistent, and conclusive ; but on 
the ground of a confusion between Tatian's Harmony and 
that of Ammonius on the part of a Syrian writer of the 
thirteenth century (Gregorius Abulpharagius or Bar-He- 
braeus), and of the two persons by a still later writer, Ebed- 
Jesu, both of which confusions can be traced to a misunder- 
standing of the language of Bar-Salibi, and for other reasons 
equally weak, f the fact that Tatian's work was a Harmony 
of our Four Gospels has been questioned by some German 
critics, and of course by Supernatural Religion. But the 
whole subject has been so thoroughly discussed and its ob- 
scurities so well cleared up by Bishop Lightfoot, in an article 
in the Contemporary Revieiv for May, 1877, that the question 
may be regarded as settled. % Lightfoot's view is confirmed 
by the recent publication of Ephraem's Commentary on the 

*See Tischendorf, N. T. Gr. ed. Sva, on Matt, xxvii. 49, and Scholz, -V. T. Gr., vol. i., 
p. cxlix., and p. 243, note x. 

t Such as that Victor of Capua (a.d. 545) says that it was called Diapente {i.e., "made out of 
five "). But this is clearly a slip of the pen of Victor himself, or a mistake of some scribe: for, as 
Hilgenfeld (Einleit. p. 79, note) and Lightfoot remark, Victor is simply reporting Eusebius* s 
account of it, and not only does Eusebius say that Tatian called it the Diatessaron, but Victor 
himself has just described it as " unuin ex quatuor ." The strange mistake, for it can be nothing 
else, may possibly be accounted for by the fact that Diatessaron and Diape7ite being both 
musical terms, one might naturally recall the other, and lead to an unconscious substitution on the 
part of some absent-minded copyist. Under no circumstances can any inference about the com- 
position of the work be drawn from this Diapente, for Victor derives his information from 
Eusebius, and not only do all the Greek MSS. in the passage referred to read Diatessaron, but 
this reading is confirmed by the very ancient, probably contemporary, Syriac version of Eusebius, 
preserved in a MS. of the sixth century, and by the Latin version of Rufinus, made a century and 
a half before Victor wrote. (See Lightfoot, p. 1143.) The mistake ascribed to the Syriac lexicog- 
rapher Bar-Bahlul is proved to be due to an interpolator. (See Lightfoot, p. 1 139, note.) The 
statement of Epiphanius, the most untrustworthy and blundering of the Fathers, that "it is 
called by some the Gospel according to the Hebrews " (Heer. xlvi. 1), if it had any foundation 
beyond a mere guess of the writer, may have originated from the omission of the genealogies, 
which were omitted also in one form of the Gospel according to the Hebrews (Epiph. Heer. 
xxx. 13, 14). The supposition that if -was that Gospel contradicts all our information about the 
two works except the circumstance just mentioned : and that it had additions from that Gospel 
is a conjecture for which we have not a particle of evidence. (See Lightfoot, p. 1141 ; Lipsius in 
Smith and Wace's Diet, of Christian Biog. ii. 714.) 

± To Lightfoot's article I am much indebted. The other writers who treat of the subject most . 
fully are Credner, Beitr'dge u.s.w., i. 437-451, who has thrown more darkness upon it than 
anybody else; Daniel, Tatianus der Apologet (Halle, 1S37), pp. S7-111, who has refuted 
Credner s arguments; Semisch, Tatiani Diatessaron, Vratisl. 1S56; Hilgenfeld, Einleit. in d. 
X.T. (1S75), pp. 75-79; Supernatural Religioii, vol. ii., pp. 14S-159, 7th ed. ; and E. B. 
Nicholson, The Gospel according to the Hebrews (London, 1S79), P- J 6 f- 5 and pp. 126-133, who 
does not appear to have seen Lightfoot's article, but exposes independently many of the errors 
and fallacies of Supernatural Religion. See also Norton, Genuineness of the Gospels, iii. 292 ff. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



173 



Diatessaron, to which I have already had occasion to refer. * 
This exists only in an Armenian version of the Syriac, made, 
it is supposed, in the fifth century. The Armenian text was 
published in the second volume of the collected Works of 
St. Ephraem in Armenian, printed at Venice in 1836 (4 vols. 
8vo) ; but Aucher's Latin translation of the Commentary, 
revised and edited by G. Moesinger, who compared it with 
another Armenian manuscript, first appeared at Venice in 
1876, and the work has hitherto been almost unnoticed by 
scholars.! It should be observed that Ephraem's commen- 
tary is only on select passages of the Harmony, unless the 
work which has come down to us is merely an abridgment. 
But there seems to be no ground for questioning the gen- 
uineness of the work ascribed to Ephraem ; and little or no 
ground for doubting that the Harmony on which he is com- 
menting is Tatian's, in accordance with the account of 
Dionysius Bar-Salibi. t It agrees with what we know of 
Tatian's in omitting the genealogies and in beginning with 
the first verse of the Gospel of John. Further, the character 
of the text, so far as we can judge of it from a translation of 
a translation, is such as to lend confirmation to the view that 
it ds Tatian's. It presents some very ancient various read- 
ings which accord remarkably with those of Justin Martyr 
and other early writers, and with the Curetonian Syriac 
where it differs from the later Peshito. || 



* See Note A in the February number of this Review, p. 162, no. 4. 

t The volume is entitled : Evangelii concordantis Expositio facta a Sancto Ephraemo 
Doctore Syro. In Latinum translata a R. P. Joanne Baptista Aucher Mechitarista citjus 
Versionem emendavit, A dnotationihes illustravit et edidit Dr. Georgius Moesinger. 
Venetiis, Libraria PP. Mechitaristarum in Monasterio S. Lazari. 1876. 8vo. pp. xii., 292. 
Lipsius, art. Gospels., Apocryphal, in Smith and Wace's Diet, of Christian Biog., vol. ii. 
(London, 1880), p. 713, is not even aware that the Armenian translation has been published. 

t See Moesinger, ubi supra, Praef . p. ii. ff. 

II We find, for example, the very ancient punctuation or construction which ends the sentence 
in John i. 3 with obde £V, "not even one thing," connecting yeyovev with ver. 4. (See 
Moesinger's edition, p. 5.) This accords with the citation of the passage by Tatian (Orat. ad 
Grcec. c. 19). In Matt. i. 25, we read "sancte {or in sanctitate) habitabat cum ea" (Moesinger, 
pp. 23, 25, 26); so the Curetonian Syriac. In Matt. viii. 10 (p. 74), it reads, " Non in aliquo in 
Israel tantam fidem inveni," with Cod. Vaticanus (B), several of the best cursives, the MSS. 
a gi. k q of the Old Latin, the Curetonian Syriac, Sahidic, Coptic, and /Ethiopic versions, the 
Harclean Syriac in the margin, Augustine once, and the "Opus Imperfectum' 1 '' on Matt. In 
Matt. xi. 27 (Moesinger, pp. 117, 216), it agrees with Justin, the Clementine Homilies, and the 
Gnostics in Irenaeus, in the transposition of the clauses relating to the Father and the Son. (See 



174 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



We may regard it then, I conceive, as an established fact 
that Tatian's Diatessaron was a Harmony of our four Gospels. 
So difficult and laborious a work would hardly have been un- 
dertaken, except to meet a want which had been widely felt. 
It implies that the four books used were recognized by those 
for whom it was intended as authoritative, and as possessing 
equal authority. Can we then believe that Tatian's Harmony 
represented a different set of books from the " Memoirs called 
Gospels " of his master Justin, which were read at the meet- 
ings for public worship in churches all over the Christian 
world as the authentic records of the life and teaching of 
Christ, the production of Apostles and their companions ? 
Does not Tatian's unquestionable use of the Gospel of John 
in particular confirm the strong presumption from other facts 
that this Gospel was included in the " Memoirs " used by his 
master and by Christians generally twenty years before ? 

This presumption receives further confirmation from other 
testimonies to the existence and use of the Fourth Gospel 
between the time of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. 

The treatise or fragment On the Resurrection, which Otto 
with many others ascribes to Justin, if not genuine, probably 
belongs to this period. In c. I we read, " The Logos of God, 
who was [or became] his Son, came to us clothed in flesh, 
revealing both himself and the Father, giving to us in him- 
self the resurrection from the dead and the eternal life which 
follows." The allusions here to John i. I, 14; xiv. 9; xi. 25, 
26, seem unmistakable. So in c. 9, " He permitted them to 
handle him, and showed in his hands the marks of the nails," 
we have a reference to John xx. 25, 27, as well as to Luke 
xxiv. 39. 

Melito, bishop of Sardis (cir. a.d. 165), in a fragment from 

Note A, under no. 4.) In Matt. xix. 17, the text is given in Ephraem's commentary in different 
forms, but it seems to be, substantially, " Unus tantum est bonus, Pater {or Deus Pater) qui in 
caelis" (Moesinger, pp. 169, 170, 173); similarly, Justin Martyr once {Dial. c. 101), the Naassenes 
in Hippolytus {Adv. Hcer. v. 7, p. 102), the Marcosians in Irenaeus {Hcer. i. 20. §2), and the 
Clementine Homilies (xviii. 1, 3); see, for the numerous variations of reading here, Tischendorf's 
N.T. Gr. ed. 8va, in loc. Notice also the reading of John vii. 8 {"JVon ascendo," Moesinger, 
p. 167); John iii. 13, quoted without the last clause of text, recept. (pp. 187, 189, comp. 168); 
John x. 8 {ante me, p. 200) ; Luke xxii. 44 (" et factus est sudor ejus ut guttse sanguinis," p. 235 ; 
comp. Justin, Dial. c. 103). 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 75 



his work on the Incarnation preserved by Anastasius Sinaita, 
speaks of Christ as " giving proof to us of his deity by signs 
[wrought] in the three years after his baptism, and of his 
humanity in the thirty years before his baptism."* This 
assignment of a duration of three years to his ministry must 
have been founded on the Gospel of John, which mentions 
three Passovers (ii. 13; vi. 4; xi. 55) besides the "feast of 
the Jews " referred to in John v. 1. 

Claudius Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia (dr. 
a.d. 166), in a treatise on the Paschal Festival, refers to the 
apparent difference between John and the Synoptic Gospels 
as to the time of the death of Jesus. Apollinaris, relying 
on the Gospel of John, held that it was on the day on which 
the paschal lamb was killed, the 14th of Nisan ; his oppo- 
nents, appealing to the Gospel of Matthew, maintained that 
it was on the day following. Both Gospels were evidently 
received as authoritative by both parties. f He also refers 
in the same work to the piercing of the side of Jesus and 
the effusion of water and blood, mentioned only by John 
(xix. 34)4 

The Epistle of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons in Gaul 
to those of Asia and Phrygia, giving an account of their per- 
secutions (a.d. 177), quotes the following as the words of the 
Lord : " There shall come a time in which whosoever killeth 
you shall think that he is offering a religious service to God," 
larpeiav rrpooytpeiv -w dev. The expression in the last clause 
is the same which is inadequately rendered in the common 
version "doeth God service " (John xvi. 2).|| The use of the 
word irapaiikriTOQ a little before in the Epistle, "having the 

*See Anast. Sinait. Hodeg. or Vice Ditx, c. 13, in Migne, Patrol. Gr. lxxxix. col. 229, or 
Melito, Frag. vi. in Otto, Corp. A£ol. Christ., vol. ix. (1872), p. 416. 

\Chronicon Paschale, vol. i., pp. 13, 14, ed. Dindorf ; Apollinaris in Routh's Rett, sacrce, 
ed. alt. (1846), i. 160; or Otto, Corp. Apol. Christ., ix. 486 f. 

Xlbid. p. 14. ed. Dindorf; Routh, ibid. p. 161; Otto, ubi supra. For a full view of the 
evidence of Melito and Apollinaris, and of the considerations which give it weight, see Lightfoot's 
article, "The Later School of St. John," in the Contemporary Review for February, 1876, 
xxvii. 471 ff. 

II The letter is preserved in large part by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. cc. 1-4. It may be con- 
sulted conveniently in Routh, Rell. sacra, i. 295 ff., ed. alt. For the quotation, see Epist. c. 4; 
Routh, p. 300 ; Euseb. v. 1. § 15. 



176 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Paraclete within him," also suggests the Gospel of John ; 
comp. John xiv. 16, 17.* 

Athenagoras the Athenian {cir. a.d. 176), in his Plea for 
Christians addressed to M. Aurelius and Gommodus, speak- 
ing of "the Logos of God the Father," says that "through 
him all things were made " (V av-ov irdwa h/hero), the Father 
and the Son being one ; and the Son being in the Father, 
and the Father in the Son " ; language which seems evidently 
founded on John i. 3 ; x. 30, 38; xiv. 10, 11 ; xvii. 21, 22. j 

Theophilus, bishop of Antioch a.d. 1 69-1 81, in his work 
in defence of Christianity addressed to Autolycus (a.d. 180), 
says, "The Holy Scriptures teach us, and all who were 
moved by the Spirit, among whom John says, ' In the begin- 
ning was the word [or Logos], and the Word was with God.' " 
He proceeds to quote John i. 3. J 

The Muratorian Canon (cir. a.d. 170), as has already been 
mentioned, ascribes the Gospel to the Apostle John, and 
gives an account of the circumstances under which it was 
written, fabulous doubtless in some of its details, but having 
probably a basis of truth. || 

Celsus, the celebrated Heathen adversary of Christianity 
(a.d. 178, Keim), professedly founds his statements concern- 
ing the history of Christ on " the writings of his disciples ";** 
and his accounts are manifestly based on our four Gospels, ff 

* Epist. c. 3; Routh, p. 298; Euseb. v. r. § 10. In the same section we have other expres- 
sions apparently borrowed from John xv. 13 and 1 John iii. 16. See, further, Lightfoot's article, 
"The Churches of Gaul," in the Contemp. Review for August, 1876, xxviii. 405 ff. An English 
translation of the Fragments of Melito and Apollinaris, and of the Epistle of the Churches of 
Vienne and Lyons, will be found appended to vol. ii. of Lactantius, in vol. xxii. of the Ante- 
Nicene Christian Library. 

t Suppl. pro Christ, c. 10, p. 46, ed. Otto. 

XAdAutol. ii. 22, pp. 118-120, ed. Otto. 

|| See on this subject Lightfoot in the Contemp. Review for October, 1875, xxvi. 835 ff.; 
Matthew Arnold, God and the Bible, p. 248 (Eng. ed.) ; and Westcott, " Introd. to the Gospel of 
St. John," in The Holy Bible . . . with . . . Commentary, etc., ed. by F. C. Cook, IV. T., vol. ii. 
p. xxxv. 

**Origen, Cels. ii. 13, 74; comp. 32, 53. He quotes these writings as possessing among 
Christians unquestioned authority : "We need," says he, " no other witness ; for you fall upon 
your own swords" (ii. 74). * 

tt See fully in Lardner, Testimonies of Ancient Heathens, ch. xviii., Works, vii. 210-278 ; 
Kirchhofer, Quellensammlung zur Gesch. des neutest. Canons (1844), pp. 330-349; Keim, 
Celsus" 1 Wahres Wort (1873), pp. 223-230. Comp. Norton, Genuineness of the Gospels, i. 142 
ff. ; E. A. Abbott, art. Gospels, in the Encyc. Britannica, gth ed., x. 818. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 77 



though he does not name their authors. He refers to sev- 
eral circumstances peculiar to the narrative of John, as the 
blood which flowed from the body of Jesus at his crucifixion,* 
and the fact that Christ " after his death arose, and showed 
the marks of his punishment, and how his hands had been 
pierced." f He says that "some relate that one, and some 
that two angels came to the sepulchre, to announce that 
Jesus was risen." J Matthew and Mark speak of but one 
angel, Luke and John mention two. He says that the Jews 
"challenged Jesus in the temple to produce some clear proof 
that he was the Son of God." || He appears also to allude to 
the cry of Jesus, " I thirst," recorded only by John.** Re- 
ferring to a declaration of Jesus, he satirically exclaims, 
" O Light and Truth ! " designations of Christ characteristic 
of John's Gospel. ff He says that Jesus "after rising from 
the dead showed himself secretly to one woman only, and 
to his boon companions. "JJ Here the first part of the 
statement seems to refer to John's account of the appear- 
ance of Christ to Mary Magdalene. 

The heretical writings of this period clearly recognize the 
Fourth Gospel. Notwithstanding several apparent quotations 
or allusions, it was formerly maintained that the author of 
the Clementine Homilies could not possibly have used this 
Gospel, it being in such opposition to his opinions. But 
since the discovery of the Codex Ottobonianus, containing 
the missing portion of the book (first published by Dressel 
in his edition of the Homilies in 1853), there has been a 
change of view. That portion contains 'so clear a quotation 
of John ix. 1-3 {Horn. xix. 22) that Hilgenfeld has handsomely 
retracted his denial ;|||| and, though Scholten and Supernatu- 



* Origen, Cels. ii. 36, also i. 66; comp. John xix. 34. 
tOrigen, Cels. ii. 55, 59; John xx. 25, 27. 

% Origen, Cels. v. 52, 56; John xx. 12; comp. Luke xxiv. 4, 23. 

II Origen, Cels. i. 67; John ii. 18; comp. x. 23, 24. (Matt. xxi. 23.) 

** Origen, Cels. ii. 37; John xix. 28. 

tt Origen, Cels. ii. 49; John viii. 12 ; ix. 5 ; xii. 46; xiv. 6. 

Origen, Cels. ii. 70; John xx. 14-18. Compare, however, the Addition to Mark, xvi. 9. 
Illl Einleit. in d. N.T., p. 43 f., note; comp. Matthew Arnold, God and the Bible, p. 277. 
Volkmar also recognizes the use of the Fourth Gospel here, but only as "an unapostolic novzim" 

24 . 



i;8 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



ral Religion still resist the evidence, there can be little doubt 
about the final verdict of impartial criticism. Besides this 
passage and that about the new birth,* the Gospel of John 
seems to be used twice in Horn. iii. 52, once in a free quota- 
tion : " I am the gate of life ; he that entereth in through 
me entereth into life, for there is no other teaching that 
can save " (comp. John x. 9, 10) ; and again, " My sheep hear 
my voice" (comp. John x. 27). 

More important, and beyond any dispute, is the evidence 
of the use of the Fourth Gospel as the work of the Apostle 
John by the Gnostics of this period. Ptolemy, the disciple 
of Valentinus, in his Epistle to Flora, preserved by Epipha- 
nius (Hcer. xxxiii. 3), quotes John i. 3 as what "the Apostle 
says" ;f and, in the exposition of the Ptolemaeo-Valentinian 
system given by Irenseus, a long passage is quoted from 
Ptolemy or one of his school in which he is represented as 
saying that "John, the disciple of the Lord, supposes a 
certain Beginning," etc., citing and commenting on John i. 
1-5, 14, 18, in support of the Valentinian doctrine of the 
Ogdoacl. J The Valentinians, indeed, as we are told by 
Irenseus elsewhere, used the Gospel of John most abundantly 
(Hcer. iii. 11. § 7). Heracleon, another disciple of Valen- 
tinus, wrote a commentary on it, large extracts from which 
are preserved by Origen. || The book commonly cited as 
Excerpta Theodoti or Doctrina Orientalis, a compilation (with 
criticisms) from the writings of Theodotus and other Gnostics 
of the second century, ascribed to Clement of Alexandria and 

(Ursprwig tins. Evv., 1866, p. 62 f., 134 f.). The question is well treated by Sanday, The 
Gospels i?i the Second Century, pp. 293 ff. It is to be observed that the incident of " the man 
blind from his birth " is introduced in the Homilies (xix. 22) as it is in the Apostolical Constitu- 
tions (v. 7. § 17) with the use of the definite article, as something well-known to the readers of the 
book. How does this happen, if the writer is taking it from " an unapostolic ?iovum " ? Drum- 
mond and Sanday have properly called attention to this use of the article. 
* Horn. xi. 26; see the March number of this Review, p. 242. 

1 1 follow the text of Dindorf in his edition of Epiphanius, vol. ii., pp. 199, 200, who reads 
rd re Tcavra for are iravra and yeyovevai ovSev for yeyovev oi)6ev. 

t Iren. Hcer. i. 8. § 5. The old Latin version of Irenseus, which is often more trustworthy 
than the Greek as preserved by Epiphanius, ends the section referred to with the words : 
Et Ptolemceus quidem ita. For the Greek, generally, see Epiphanius, Hcer. xxxi. 27, in 
Dindorf 's edition, which gives the best text. 

|| These are collected in Grabe's Sfiicilegium SS. Patruiu, etc., ii. 85-117, 237, ed. alt. 
(1714), and in Stieren's Irenasus, i. 938-971. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. I 79 



commonly printed with his works, contains many extracts 
from one or more writers of the Valentinian school, in which 
the Gospel of John is quoted and commented upon as the 
work of the Apostle. (See particularly cc. 6-8, also 3, 9, 
13, 17-19. 26 > 4h 45> 61, 62, 65, 73.) 

The literature of the third quarter of the second century 
is fragmentary, but we have seen that it attests the use of 
the Fourth Gospel in the most widely separated regions of 
the Christian world, and by parties diametrically opposed in 
sentiment. The fact that this Gospel was used by those to 
whose opinions it was or seemed to be adverse — by the 
author of the Clementine Homilies, by Ouartodecimans and 
their opponents, and especially by the Gnostics, who were 
obliged to wrest its language so violently to accommodate it 
to their systems — shows that to have won such a reception at 
that time it must have come down from an earlier period 
with commanding authority. Its use in Tatian's Diatessaron 
also makes this evident. It must have belonged to those 
"Memoirs " to which Justin appealed fifteen or twenty years 
before, and which were recognized by the Christians gen- 
erally of his day as the authentic sources of information 
respecting the life and teaching of Christ. The particular 
evidence we have been examining, limited as it is by the 
scantiness of the literature, strengthens the general conclu- 
sion before drawn from the universal reception of our four 
Gospels in the time of Irenaeus, and from the direct indica- 
tions of the use of the Fourth Gospel by Justin. The evi- 
dence that this Gospel was one of his " Memoirs " is thus 
cumulative, and, unless it is countervailed by some very 
strong objections, must be regarded as decisive. Let us 
then consider the main objections which have been urged 
against this conclusion. 

The first is that, according to Supernatural Religion, "The 
description which Justin gives of the manner of the teaching 
of Jesus excludes the idea that he knew the Fourth Gospel. 
'Brief and concise were the sentences uttered by him : for 
he was no Sophist, but his word was the power of God.' 



i8o 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



No one could for a moment assert that this applies to the 
long and artificial discourses of the Fourth Gospel." * 

Here we may observe, in the first place, that Justin's Greek 
is not quite accurately translated, j The word rendered 
"sentences" is without the article; and Prof. Drummond 
translates the clause more correctly, " Brief and concise say- 
ings have proceeded from him," remarking that "Justin is 
describing not the universal, but only the prevailing and 
prominent character of his teaching." J And it is not a 
description of the teaching in the Fourth Gospel in particu- 
lar, but a general statement, not inconsistent with the fact 
that the character of the discourses in the Fourth Gospel 
is in some respects peculiar. But, as to " brief and concise 
sayings " of Jesus, Professor Drummond, in glancing over 
the first thirteen chapters of John, finds no less than fifty- 
three to which this description would apply. He observes 
that "the book contains in reality very little connected 
argumentation ; and even the longest discourses consist 
rather of successive pearls of thought strung on a thread 
of association than of consecutive discussion and proof." || 
But it may be greatly doubted whether Justin means here 
by jSpaxeig UyoL } as Tayler supposes, simply " short, aphoristic 
maxims." The reference to the Sophists, that is, rhetori- 
cians, leads one rather to suppose that Justin is contrasting 
the Uyoi, " discourses," of Christ in general with the long, 
artificial, argumentative, and rhetorical Uyoi of the Sophists 
among his earlier or later contemporaries, such as Dion 
Chrysostomus, H erodes Atticus, Polemo and Aristides, 
whom Philostratus describes in his biographies. As for 
brevity, the discourses in the Fourth Gospel are generally 
short : the longest continuous discourse there recorded 

* Sup. Ret., ii. 314; similarly J. J. Tayler, An Attempt to ascertaitt the Character of the 
Fourth Gospel (1867), p. 64; Davidson, Introd. to the Study of the N.T. (1S6S), ii. 386, and 
many others. 

■fApol. i. 14: f3paxdr 6e ml avvrofwt reap 1 aiiTOV Xoyot yeyovaaiv. It may be 
thought, perhaps, that l has dropped out after GVVTb[lOL, which might easily have happened. 
But, even if the article had been used, the argument would be worthless. Such general proposi- 
tions are seldom to be taken without qualification. 

% Theol. Review, July, 1877, xiv. 330. 

|| Ibid. pp. 330, 331. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 8 1 



would hardly occupy five minutes in the reading. The 
Sermon on the Mount as given by Matthew is much longer 
than any unbroken discourse in John. But what charac- 
terizes the teaching of Christ in the Gospels, as Justin inti- 
mates, is the divine authority and spiritual power with which 
he speaks ; and this is not less striking in the Fourth Gospel 
than in the Synoptists. (Comp. Matt. vii. 29; Luke iv. 32 ; 
John vii. 26, 46.) 

A more plausible objection is this. If Justin knew and 
used the Fourth Gospel at all, why has he not used it more ? 
Why has he never appealed to it in proof of his doctrine of 
the Logos and of the pre-existence of Christ ? He has ex- 
pressly quoted but one saying of Christ recorded in it, and 
one of John the Baptist, and has referred to but one incident 
peculiar to it, unless we adopt the view of Professor Drum- 
mond respecting his reference to John xix. 13. (See above, 
p. 168.) His account of Christ's life and teaching cor- 
responds substantially with that given in the Synoptic Gos- 
pels, which he follows (so it is affirmed) where they differ, 
or seem to differ, from John. Albrecht Thoma, in an article 
in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift, comes to the conclusion, after a 
minute examination of the subject, that Justin "knows and 
uses almost every chapter of the Logos-Gospel, and in part 
very fully." But such considerations as I have mentioned 
convince him, notwithstanding, that he did not regard it as 
apostolic, or historically authentic. He finds Justin's rela- 
tion to the Apostle Paul very similar. Justin shows himself 
well acquainted with Paul's writings, he often follows him in 
his citations from the Old Testament where they differ from 
the Septuagint, he borrows largely his thoughts and illustra- 
tions and language, but never quotes him expressly and by 
name ; and so Mr. Thoma thinks he cannot have regarded 
him as an Apostle.* 

This argument forgets the nature of Justin's writings. 
Were he addressing a Christian community in defence of his 



* See the article, "Justins literarisches Verhaltniss zu Paulus unci zum Johannes-Evan- 
gelium," in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift fur wissensch. Theologie, 1875, xviii. 383 ff., 490 ff. The 
quotation in the text is from p. 553. 



182 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



doctrine of the pre-existence and subordinate deity of Christ 
in opposition to the Ebionites, these objections would be 
valid. But he was writing for unbelievers. In his Apolo- 
gies addressed to the Emperor and Senate and people of 
Rome, he cannot quote the Christian writings in direct proof 
of the truth of Christian doctrines, and makes no attempt to 
do so. In giving the account which he does of the teaching 
of Christ, he draws mainly from the Sermon on the Mount, 
and in his sketch of the Gospel history follows mainly the 
guidance of Matthew, though also using Luke, and in two 
or three instances Mark. That is exactly what was to be 
expected. Justin's chief argument is derived from the fulfil- 
ment of Old Testament prophecies, and in this he natu- 
rally follows the Gospel of Matthew, which is distinguished 
from the others by its reference to them. Where Matthew's 
citations differ from the Alexandrine version of the Old 
Testament, Justin often appears to borrow from Matthew 
rather than from the Septuagint.* The discourses of Christ 
as they are given in the Synoptic Gospels were obviously 
much better fitted for his purpose of presenting to heathens 
a general view of Christ's teaching than those in the Gospel 
of John. Similar remarks apply to the Dialogue with 
Trypho the Jew. Here Dr. Davidson thinks it strange that 
Justin should not have .quoted the prologue of the Fourth 
Gospel, and such a passage as "Before Abraham was, I am," 
in proof of Christ's divinity and pre-existence. f But the 
Jew with whom Justin was arguing would not have accepted 
an assertion of John or a declaration of Christ as a proof of 
its truth. So in the case of Paul's writings. Paul was not 
so popular among the Jews that his name would recommend 
the arguments or illustrations which Justin borrows from 
him ; still less could Justin quote his Epistles in proof of 
doctrine in a discussion with a Jew, or in a defence of Chris- 
tianity addressed to heathens. 

*See Semisch, Die apost. Denkwihrdigkeiten u.s.w., pp. 110-120; examples are also given 
by Norton, Genuineness, etc., vol. i. Addit. Notes, pp. ccxx., ccxxii., cccxxxii. f. 

t Davidson's Introd. to the Stttdy of the N. T. (1868), ii. 3S5. Compare Volkmar, Ueber 
Justin den Martyrer u.s.w. (Zurich, 1853), p. 20 f. ; Ursfirimg tins. Evang. (1866), p. 107 f. ; 
Thoma, ubi supra, p. 556. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



183 



The correctness of this explanation is confirmed by an 
indisputable fact. Justin certainly believed that the Apostle 
John was the author of the Apocalypse ; Supernatural Relig- 
ion (i. 295) thinks that this was the only book of the New 
Testament which he regarded as "inspired"; Thoma (p. 563, 
note 1) even supposes that it was read in the churches in 
Justin's time together with the "Memoirs" and the Prophets 
of the Old Testament. How, then, does it happen that he 
has not a single quotation from this book which calls Christ 
"the Word [Logos] of God" (Rev. xix. 13), "the beginning 
of the creation of God " (iii. 14), " the first and the last and 
the living one " (i. 17, comp. ii. 8), "the searcher of the reins 
and hearts " (ii. 23), and, apparently (though according to 
Alford and Westcott not really), "the Alpha and the Omega, 
the beginning and the end " (xxii. 13) ? In speaking of the 
different opinions among Christians about the resurrection, 
Justin once refers to the book as agreeing with the prophets 
in predicting the Millennium, and mentions the name of the 
author (Dial. c. 81 ; the passage will be cited below) ; but, as 
I have said, he nowhere quotes this work, which he regarded 
as inspired, apostolic, prophetic, though it contains so much 
which might seem to favor his view of the person of Christ. 
Were it not for that almost accidental reference to it, it 
might be plausibly argued that he was ignorant of its exist- 
ence. In one place in the Dialogue with Trypho (c. 18), 
Justin half apologizes for subjoining "some brief sayings" 
of the Saviour to the words of the Prophets, on the ground 
that Trypho had acknowledged that he had read the precepts 
of Christ "in the so-called Gospel" (Dial. c. 10). But he 
does not introduce them there as arguments. 

It should be observed, further, that the course pursued by 
Justin in abstaining from quoting the Gospels in proof of 
doctrines, and in not mentioning the Evangelists by name, 
in writings addressed to unbelievers, is simply that which 
was followed, with slight exceptions, by a long line of Chris- 
tian Apologists from his time down to that of Eusebius.* 



*See Norton, Gen. of the Gospels, i. 218 fL; Westcott, Canon of the N.T., p. 116 ff. ; 
E. S. Ffoulkes, art. Fathers, in Smith and Wace's Diet, of Christian Biog., ii. 456 f. 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



It may still be said that this applies only to quotations 
made in proof of doctrines. It may be asked, and there is 
some force in the question, Why has not Justin used John 
as he has used the Synoptic Gospels, as an authority for his- 
torical facts, for facts which he supposed to be predicted in 
the Old Testament ? To take one example which has been 
urged : Justin has quoted from the Old Testament, in pre- 
cisely the same form as John (differing from the established 
text of the Septuagint), the words, "They shall look on me 
whom they pierced" : * but instead of referring to the inci- 
dent which led John to quote it, — the thrusting of a spear 
into our Saviour's side by a Roman soldier, — he seems to 
apply it to the crucifixion generally. How could he do this, 
if he accepted the Gospel of John ? f 

This case presents little difficulty. ■ The verbs in the 
quotation, it will be observed, are in the plural. If Justin 
regarded the prophecy as including the act of the Roman 
soldier, he could not have restricted it to that : he must 
have regarded the language of the Old Testament as refer- 
ring also to the piercing of the hands and the feet of Jesus 
on the part of the soldiers who nailed him to the cross. It 
is not strange, therefore, that he should quote the passage 
without referring to the particular act mentioned by John. 
He applies the prophecy, moreover, to the Jews, who caused 
the death of Jesus, and not to the Roman soldiers, who were 
the immediate agents in the crucifixion. % 

But there is a stronger case than this. Justin, who speaks 
of Christ as "the passover " or paschal lamb, symbolizing 
the deliverance of Christian believers from death, "as the 
blood of the passover saved those who were in Egypt" (Dial. 
c. in, comp. 40), has not noticed the fact recorded by John 
alone, that the legs of Christ were not broken by the Roman 
soldiers at the crucifixion. This the Evangelist regards as 
a fulfilment of the scripture, "A bone of him shall not be 



*Zech. xii. 10; John xix. 37 ; Justin, Afiol. i. 52. See above, p. 494 f. 

fThoma, pp. 542 f., 556; comp. Engelhardt, Das Chr istenthum Justins des Mdrtyrers 
(1878), p. 350. 

% A pol. i. 52 ; Dial. cc. 14, 32, 64, 118 ; comp. Dial. cc. 85, 93, etc. ; Acts ii. 23 ; x. 39. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 85 



broken " ; and this quotation is commonly referred to the 
direction respecting the paschal lamb (Ex. xii. 46; Num. 
ix. 12). How, it may be asked, could Justin, with his fond- 
ness for types, have neglected such a fulfilment as this, when 
the Evangelist had already pointed it out ? This argument 
is plausible, and has some weight. Let us consider it. 

In the first place, I must venture to doubt whether there 
is any reference in John to the paschal lamb at all. The 
Evangelist says nothing whatever to indicate such a refer- 
ence, though some explanation would seem to be needed of 
the transformation of a precept into a prediction. The lan- 
guage of Ps. xxxiv. 20 (Sept. xxxiii. 21) corresponds more 
closely with the citation ; and, considering the free way in 
which passages of the Old Testament are applied in the 
New, the fact that in the connection in which the words 
stand in the Psalm protection of life is referred to does not 
seem a very serious objection to the supposition that the 
Evangelist had this passage in mind. He may well have 
regarded the part of the Psalm which he quotes as fulfilled 
in the case of "Jesus Christ the righteous " in the incident 
which he records, and the preceding verse as fulfilled in the 
resurrection. And some eminent scholars take this view 
of his meaning; so, e.g., Grotius, Wetstein, Bishop Kidder, 
Hammond, Whitby, Bruckner, Baumlein, Weiss ; * others, as 
Lenfant and Le Clerc, leave the matter doubtful ; and some, 
as Vitringa and Bengel, suppose the Evangelist to have had 
both passages in mind. But, waiving this question, I would 
say, once for all, that very little importance is to be attached 
to this sort of a priori reasoning. We may be surprised that 
Justin should not have been led by the Fourth Gospel to 
find here a fulfilment of prophecy of some sort, and to use 
it in his argument ; but a hundred cases equally surprising 
might be cited of the neglect of a writer to use an argument 
or to recognize a fact which we should have confidently ex- 
pected that he would use or recognize. To take the first 
that lies at hand. I have before me the work of Dr. Sanday, 

* BibL.Theol. des N.T., -xp Aufl. (1880), p. 638; comp. his Der J ohanneische Lehrbegriff 
(1862), p. 114, note. So R. H. Hutton, Essays, Theol. and Literary , 2d ed. (1880), i. 195. 

25 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



The Gospels in the Second Century, a learned, elaborate, and 
valuable treatise in reply to Supernatural Religion. He ad- 
duces from all sources the evidence of the use of the Gospels 
by writers who flourished in the period from Clement of 
Rome to Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, including 
those whose references to the Gospel are very slight and 
doubtful, or of whom mere fragments remain. Appended 
to the work is a chronological and analytical table of these 
authors. But, on looking it over, we find no mention of 
Theophilus, bishop of Antioch a.d. 169— 181 ; and Dr. Sanday 
has nowhere presented the testimony of this writer, though 
we have from him an elaborate " Apology" or defence of 
Christianity in three books, in which he quotes several pas- 
sages from the Gospel of Matthew with the introduction, 
"The evangelic voice teaches" so and so, or "the Gospel 
says," * and though, as we have seen, he quotes the Gospel 
of John (ch. i. 1, 3), naming the Evangelist, and describing 
him as one moved by the Spirit of God (see above, p. 176 f.) 
He is in fact the earliest writer who does thus expressly 
quote the Fourth Gospel as the work of John. Now sup- 
pose Dr. Sanday was a Father of the third or fourth century 
who had composed a treatise with the purpose of collecting 
the evidences of the use of the Gospels by early Christian 
writers. What would the author of Supernatural Religion 
say to the facts in this case ? Would he not argue that 
Sandaeus could not possibly have been acquainted with this 
work of Theophilus, and that the pretended "Apology" was 
probably spurious ? And, if he found in Sandseus (p. 303) 
a single apparent allusion to that writer, would he not main- 
tain that this must be an interpolation ? — Or to take another 
example. Sandasus is examining the question about Justin 
Martyr's use of the Gospels, and observes that "he says 
emphatically that all the children (-arrcc d-z.uc roi-c -aidac) 
in Bethlehem were slain, without mentioning the limitation 
of age given in St. Matthew" (p. 106; comp. Justin, Dial. 
c. 78). Now in our present texts of Justin there is another 



* Ad Autol. lib. iii. cc. 13, 14, ed. Otto; comp. Matt. v. 2S, 44, 46; vi. 3. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 87 

reference to the slaughter of the innocents, in which Herod 
is represented as " destroying all the children born in Beth- 
lehem at that time." * But here Supernatural Religion might 
argue, It is certain that this qualifying phrase could not have 
been in the copy used by Sandaeus, who takes no notice of 
the passage, though his aim is to meet the objections to the 
genuineness of our Gospels. Is it not clear that the words 
were interpolated by some one who wished to bring Justin 
into harmony with Matthew ? Would Justin be so incon- 
sistent with himself as that addition would make him ? 

A multitude of questions may be asked, to which no par- 
ticular answer can be given, in reference to the use which 
Justin and writers in all ages have made of our Gospels. 
We cannot say why he has quoted this saying of Jesus and 
not that, or referred to this incident in the history and not 
that ; why, for example, in his account of Christ's teaching 
in his First Apology, he makes no allusion to any of the 
parables which form so remarkable a feature of it, and quotes 
from them in but one place in his Dialogue with Trypho 
{Dial. c. 125). We can only say that he had to stop some- 
where ; f that he has used the Gospels much more freely 
than any other of the many Christian Apologists whose 
writings have come down to us from his day to that of 
Lactantius and Eusebius ; that his selection of the sayings 
of Christ seems on the whole judicious and natural, though 
many pearls of great price are missing ; that the historical 
incidents by which he supports his special argument from 
the fulfilment of prophecy are for the most part what might 
be expected ; and that it was natural that in general he 
should follow the Synoptic Gospels rather than that of 
John. J But one needs only to try experiments on partic- 
ular works by almost any writer to find that great caution 
is required in drawing inferences from what he has not done. 

*Dml. c. 103: avz'kovroq rravrag tovq kv Br/6/iee/j. hueivov tov k. a 1 p v 
yevvrjdev-aQ iraidag. 

t Comp. Apol. i. 53: "Here we conclude, though we have many other prophecies to 
produce." 

JSee on this point Meyer, Komni. uber d. Ev. Joh., 56 Aufl. (1869), p. 8 f., note (Eng. 
trans., p. 8 f., note 3) ; comp. Weizsacker, Untersuchungen uber d. evang. Geschichte, p. 229. 



lS8 • INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

As to the case before us, Justin may not have thought of 
the incident peculiar to the Fourth Gospel, or he may have 
considered, and very reasonably too, that an argument for 
the typical character of the paschal lamb founded on the 
direction given in the Pentateuch about the bones, or an 
argument assuming the Messianic reference of the passage 
in the Psalms, was not well adapted to convince unbelievers. 
Perhaps he had urged this argument in the actual dialogue 
with Trypho, and had encountered objections to its validity 
which he did not find it easy to answer. This may seem 
more probable than the supposition of forgetfulness. But 
will you say that such a failure of memory as has been sug- 
gested is incredible ? Let us compare a case. One of the 
most distinguished scholars of this country, in an article 
published in the American Biblical Repository, remarks, in 
the course of an elaborate argument : — 

The particulars inserted or omitted by different Evangelists vary ex- 
ceedingly from each other, some inserting what others omit, and some 
narrating at length what others briefly touch. E.g., compare the history 
of the temptation by Mark, and even by Matthew and Luke ; and where 
is the history of the transfiguration to be found, except in Matthew ?* 

Could anything be a priori more incredible than that an 
eminent Biblical scholar, who when this was written had held 
the office of Professor of Sacred Literature in the Andover 
Theological Seminary for nearly thirty years, should have 
forgotten that both Mark and Luke have given full accounts 
of the transfiguration, the latter especially mentioning a num- 
ber of important particulars not found in Matthew ? f If 
Professor Stuart was occasionally guilty of oversights, — as 
who is not ? — he certainly had a clearer head and a better 
memory than Justin Martyr, who in quoting and referring to 
the Old Testament makes not a few extraordinary mistakes. J 

I admit that some weight should be allowed to the argu- 

* American Biblical Repository, October, 1838, xii. 341. 

t Compare Mark ix. 2-8 and Luke ix. 28-36 with Matt. xvii. 1-8. 

X See the references already given, p. 167, note*; also Some Ac county of the Writings 
and Opinions of Justin Martyr, by John [Kaye], Bishop of Lincoln, 3d ed. (1S53), pp. 139 f., 
148; comp. p. 129 f. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 89 

ment we have been examining, so far as reference to the 
history in the Gospel of John is concerned ; but it does not 
seem to me that much importance should be attached to it. 
The tradition in the Synoptic Gospels represents without 
doubt the substance of the apostolic preaching ; it was 
earlier committed to writing than that contained in the 
Fourth Gospel ; the incidents of the threefold narrative were 
more familiar ; and the discourses, especially, as has already 
been remarked, were far better fitted for illustrating the 
general character of Christ's teaching than those of the 
Fourth Gospel. It would have been very strange, there- 
fore, if in such works as those of Justin the Synoptic Gos- 
pels had not been mainly used. 

Engelhardt, the most recent writer on Justin, is impressed 
by the facts which Thoma presents respecting Justin's rela- 
tion to John, but comes to a different conclusion. He thinks 
Justin could never have made the use of John's Gospel which 
he has done, if he had not regarded it as genuine. It pur- 
ports to be a work of the beloved disciple. The conjecture 
that by "the disciple whom Jesus loved" Andrew was in- 
tended (Liitzelberger), or Nathanael (Spaeth), or a person- 
ified ideal conception (Scholten), was reserved for the 
sagacity of critics of the nineteenth century : there is no 
trace that in Christian antiquity this title ever suggested 
any one but John. The Gospel must have been received as 
his work, or rejected as fictitious. Engelhardt believes that 
Justin received it, and included it in his " Memoirs " ; but he 
conjectures that with it there was commonly read in the 
churches and used by Justin a Harmony of the first three 
Gospels, or at least of Matthew and Luke, while the Fourth 
Gospel, not yet incorporated into the Harmony, stood in the 
background.* I do not feel the need of this hypothesis ; 
but it may deserve consideration. 

It is objected further that Justin's statements repeatedly 
contradict the Fourth Gospel, and that he cannot therefore 
have regarded it as apostolic or authentic. For example, 
he follows the Synoptic Gospels, so Hilgenfeld and David- 



*See Engelhardt, Das Christenthum yustins des Mdrtyrers, pp. 345-352. 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



son and Supernatural Religion affirm, in placing, in opposi- 
tion to John, the death of Christ on the 15th of Nisan, the 
day after the paschal lamb was killed. 

The argument that Justin cannot have accepted the Gospel 
of John because he has followed the Synoptists in respect to 
the day of Christ's death hardly needs an answer. If the 
discrepancy referred to, whether real or not, did not prevent 
the whole Christian world from accepting John and the 
Synoptic Gospels alike in the last quarter of the second 
century, it need not have hindered Justin from doing so at 
an earlier date. But it is far from certain that Hilgenfeld 
and Davidson have correctly interpreted the language of 
Justin : " It is written that you seized him on the day of the 
passover, and in like manner crucified him at [or during] 
the passover (h ~<p Tra^a)."* Meyer understands this as plac- 
ing the death of Jesus on the day of the passover ; f Otto 
in an elaborate note on the passage in his third edition of 
Justin's Works maintains the same view ; % Thoma regards 
the language as ambiguous. || I will not undertake to pro- 
nounce an opinion upon so difficult a question, as the objec- 
tion is futile on any supposition. 

Again, Supernatural Religion asserts that " Justin contra- 
dicts the Fourth Gospel, in limiting the work of Jesus to one 
year." (vS*. R. ii. 313.) Dr. Davidson makes the same state- 
ment ; ** but neither he nor S. R. adduces any proof of it. 
I know of no passage in Justin which affirms or implies this 
limitation. But, if such a passage should be found, the argu- 
ment against Justin's reception of the Fourth Gospel would 

*Dial. c in. See Hilgenfeld, Der Paschastreit der alten Kirche (i860), pp. 205-209; 
Davidson, Introd. to the Study of the N.T. (1S68), ii. 384; Sup. ReL, ii. 313 ; comp. Wieseler, 
Beitrage (1869), p. 240. — Note here the use of yh/pairrac. 

t Komment. ub. d. Ev. des Joh., ^ Aufl. p. 24 f. (Eng. trans, i. 24 f.) Steitz, who formerly 
agreed with Hilgenfeld, afterwards adopted the view of Meyer; see the art. Pascha in Herzog's 
Real-Encyk. f. Prot. u. Kirche, xi. 151, note *. 

Xlvstini . . . Martyris Opera, torn. i. pars ii., ed. tert. (1877^), p. 395 f. Otto cites Dial. 
c. 99, where the agony in Gethsemane is referred to as taking place "on the day on which Jesus 
was to be crucified," as showing that Justin followed the Jewish reckoning of the day from 
sunset to sunset. Davidson takes no notice of this. If Meyer and Otto are right, we have here 
a strong argument for Justin's use of the Fourth Gospel. 

|| Ubi supra, p. 535 f. 

** Introd. to the Study of the N. T., ii. 387. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



I 9 I 



be worthless. The opinion that Christ's ministry lasted but 
one year, or little more, was held by many in the early Church 
who received the Gospel of John without question. It was 
maintained by the Basilidians, the Valentinians, and the 
author of the Clementine Homilies, by Clement of Alexan- 
dria, Tertullian, Origen, Julius Africanus, Pseudo-Cyprian, 
Archelaus, Lactantius, Ephraem Syrus apparently, Philas- 
trius, Gaudentius, O. Julius Hilarianus, Augustine apparently, 
Evagrius the presbyter, and others among the Fathers, and 
has been held by modern scholars, as Bentley, Mann, Priestley 
(Harmony), Lant Carpenter {Harmony), and Henry Browne 
(Ordo Sceclorum). ^ The Fathers were much influenced by 
their interpretation of Isa. lxi. 2, — "to preach the acceptable 
year of the Lord," — quoted in Luke iv. 19. It is true that 
John vi. 4 is against this view ; but its defenders find means, 
satisfactory to themselves, of getting over the difficulty. 

Other objections urged by Dr. Davidson and Supernatural 
Religion seem to me too weak to need an answer. I will, 
however, notice one which is brought forward with oreat 
confidence by Thoma, who says " Justin directly contradicts 
the Fourth Gospel" (p. 556), and after him by F. C. J. van 
Goens, who introduces it with the words enfin et surtout.^ 

*The Basilidians, see Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 21, p. 408. — Valentinians, see Iren. Hcer. i. 3. 
(al- 5), § 3 ; ii. 20. (al. 36), § 1 ; 22. (al. 38-40), §§ 1-6. — Clem. Horn. xvii. 19. — Clem. Alex. Strom. 

i. 21, p. 407; vi. 11, p. 7S3, 1. 40; comp. v. 6, p. 668: vii. 17, p. S9S. — Tertull. Adv. Jud. c. 8; 
Marc. i. 15 Ojut here are different readings). — Origen, De Princip. iv. 5, Opp. i. 160 ; I?i Levit. 
Horn. ix. c. 5, Opp. ii. 239; In Ltic. Horn, xxxii., Opp. iii. 970; contra, In Matt. Comm. Ser., 
c. 40, Opp. iii. 859, "fere tres annos"; comp. Cels. ii. 12, Opp. i. 397, ovfe Tfjla ettj. — Jul. 
Africani Chron. frag. 1. ap. Routh, Rell. Sacra, ii. 301 f., ed. alt. — Pseudo-Cyprian, De Paschce 
Comp. (a.d. 243), c. 22. — Archelai et Manetis Disp., c. 34. — Lactant. hist. iv. 10. {De Morte 
Persec. c. 2.) — Ephraem, Serm. xiii. in Nat. Dom., Opp. Syr. ii. 432. — Philastr. Hcer 106. — 
Gaudent. Serm. iii., Migne, Patrol. Lat.xx.S6s- — Hilarianus, De Mundi Dur. (a d. 397) 
c. 16; De Die Paschce, c. 15: Migne, xiii. 1104, 1114, or Gallandi, Bibl. Pair. viii. 238, 748. — 
Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xviii. 54, Opp. vii. 866; Ad Hesych. Epist. 199 (al. 80), §20, Opp. 

ii. 1 122 ; contra, De Doct. Christ, ii. 42 (al. 2S), Opp. iii. 66. — Evagrius presbyter (cir. a.d. 423), 
Alter c. biter T/ieoph. Christ, et Sim. Jud., Migne xx. 1176, or Gallandi, ix. 254. — So also the 
author of the treatise De Promissis et Prcedictionibus Dei (published with the works of Prosper 
Aquitanus), pars i. c. 7 ; pars v. c. 2 ; Migne, li. 739 c, 855 b. — Browne, Ordo Sceclorum (Cor- 
rections and Additions), also cites Cyril of Alexandria, In Isa. xxxii. 10, Opp. ii. 446 d e, but 
this rests on a false inference; see, contra, Cyril, In Isa. xxix. 1, Opp. ii. 408 b. Besides the 
works of Nicholas Mann, De veris Annis Jesu Christi natali et emortuali, Lond. 1752, p. 158 
ff., Greswell, Dissertations, etc., i. 438 ff., 2d ed. (1837), and Henry Browne, Ordo Sceclorum, 
Lond. 1844, p. 80 ff., one may consult especially F. X. Patritius {i.e. Patrizi), De Evangeliis 
(Friburg. Brisgov. 1853), lib. iii., diss, xix., p. 171 ff. 

t Revue de thtologie et de philosophic, Lausanne, 1878, xi. 92 f. 



192 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Justin speaks of Christ as " keeping silence and refusing 
any longer to make any answer to any one before Pilate, as 
has been declared in the Memoirs by the Apostles " (Dial. 
c. 102). M. van Goens remarks, "No one who had ever 
read the Fourth Gospel could speak in this way." What 
does M. van Goens think of Tertullian, who says,* "Velut 
agnus coram tonclente se sine voce, sic non aperuit os suum. 
Hie enim Pilato interrogante nihil locutns est"? If Justin 
had even said that Christ made no answer when Pilate ques- 
tioned him, this would be sufficiently explained by John 
xix. 9, to which Tertullian perhaps refers. But the expres- 
sions "no longer" and "before Pilate" lead rather to the 
supposition that Justin refers to Matt, xxvii. 11-14 and 
Mark xv. 2-5 (ovketl ovdh airenpidri, " he no longer made any 
answer"), which certainly there is nothing in John to con- 
tradict. 

Finally, the author of Stipematicral Religion urges, gener- 
ally, that in citing the Old Testament Justin, according to 
Semisch's count, refers to the author by name or by book 
one hundred and ninety-seven times, and omits to do this 
only one hundred and seventeen times. On the other hand, 
in referring to the words of Christ or the facts of Christian 
history for which he relied on the "Memoirs," he never cites 
the book (S. R. regards the "Memoirs " as one book) by the 
name of the author, except in a single instance, where he 
refers to "Peter's Memoirs" (Dial. c. io6).f "The infer- 
ence," he says, " must not only be that he attached small 
importance to the Memoirs, but was actually ignorant of the 
author's name " (S. R. i. 297). That Justin attached small 
importance to the "Memoirs by the Apostles" on which he 
professedly relied for the teaching and life of Christ, and 
this, as 5. R. contends, to the exclusion of oral tradition 
(S. R. i. 298), is an " inference " and a proposition which 
would surprise us in almost any other writer. The infer- 
ence, moreover, that Justin " was actually ignorant of the 
author's name," when in one instance, according to 5. R., 

* Adv. Jiid. c. 13, Opp. ii. 737, ed. CEhler. 
t See above, p. 138 f. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 1 93 

"he indicates Peter" as the author (S. R. i. 285), and when, 
as S. R. maintains, "the Gospel according to Peter," or "the 
Gospel according to the Hebrews " (which he represents as 
substantially the same work), was in all probability the source 
from which the numerous quotations in his works differing 
from our Gospels are taken,* is another specimen of singular 
logic. So much for generalities. But a particular objection 
to the conclusion that the Gospel of John was one of Justin's 
" Memoirs " is founded on the fact that he has never quoted 
or referred to it under the name of the author, though he has 
named the Apostle John as the author of the Apocalypse. 
(S. R. i. 298.) Great stress is laid on this contrast by many 
writers. 

Let us see to what these objections amount. In the first 
place, the way in which Justin has mentioned John as the 
author of the Apocalypse is in itself enough to explain why 
he should not have named him in citing the "Memoirs." 
In his Dialogue with Trypho, after having quoted prophecies 
of the Old Testament in proof of his doctrine of the Millen- 
nium, — a doctrine in which he confesses some Christians 
did not agree with him, — he wishes to state that his belief 
is supported by a Christian writing which he regards as in- 
spired and prophetic. He accordingly refers to the work 
as follows : " And afterwards also a certain man among us, 
whose name was John, one of the Apostles of Christ, in a 
revelation made by him prophesied that the believers in our 
Christ should spend a thousand years in Jerusalem," etc. 
(Dial. c. 81.) The Apostle John was certainly as well known 
outside of the Christian body as any other of the Evangelists ; 
but we see that he is here introduced to Trypho as a stranger. 
Still more would he and the other Evangelists be strangers 
to the Roman Emperor and Senate, to whom the Apologies 
were addressed. That Justin under such circumstances 
should quote the Evangelists by name, assigning this saying 
or incident to "the Gospel according to Matthew," that to 
"Luke," and the other to "the Gospel according to John," 



* Supernatural Religion, i. 321; comp. pp. 312, 323, 332, 398, 416, 418-427; ii. 311, 7th ed. 
26 



194 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



as if he were addressing a Christian community familiar with 
the books, would have been preposterous. Justin has de- 
scribed the books in his First Apology as Memoirs of Christ, 
resting on the authority of the Apostles, and received by 
the Christians of his time as authentic records. That was 
all that his purpose required : the names of four unknown 
persons would have added no weight to his citations. In 
the Dialogue, he is even more specific in his description of 
the "Memoirs" than in the Apology. But to suppose that 
he would quote them as he quotes the books of the Old Tes- 
tament with which Trypho was familiar is to ignore all the 
proprieties and congruities of the case. 

This view is confirmed and the whole argument of Super- 
natural Religion is nullified by the fact that the general 
practice of Christian Apologists down to the time of Euse- 
bius corresponds with that of Justin, as we have before had 
occasion to remark. (See above, p. 183.) It may be added 
that, while in writings addressed to Christian readers by the 
earlier Fathers the Old Testament is often, or usually, cited 
with reference to the author or book, the cases are com- 
paratively very rare in which the Evangelists are named. 
For example, Clement of Alexandria, according to Semisch, 
quotes the Old Testament writers or books far oftener than 
otherwise by name, while in his very numerous citations 
from the Gospels he names John but three times, Matthew 
twice, Luke twice, and Mark once ; in the countless cita- 
tions of the Gospels in the Apostolical Constitutions, the 
Evangelists are never named ; and so in the numerous 
quotations of the Gospels in Cyprian's writings, with the 
exception of a single treatise (the Testimonia or Ad Quiri- 
num), the names of the Evangelists are never mentioned. 
But it cannot be necessary to expose further the utter futil- 
ity of this objection, which has so often been inconsiderately 
urged.* 

In this view of the objections to the supposition that 
Justin used the Gospel of John and included it in his 



*See Semisch, Die apostol. Denkwurdigkeiten, u. s. w., p. 84 ff . ; and compare Norton, 
Genuineness, etc., i. 205 ff., 2d ed. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



195 



"Memoirs," I have either cited them in the precise lan- 
guage of their authors, or have endeavored to state them 
in their most plausible form. When fairly examined, only 
one of them appears to have weight, and that not much. I 
refer to the objection that, if Justin used the Fourth Gospel 
at all, we should expect him to have used it more. It seems 
to me, therefore, that there is nothing of importance to 
countervail the very strong presumption from different lines 
of evidence that the "Memoirs" of Justin Martyr, "com- 
posed by Apostles and their companions," were our four 
Gospels. 

A word should perhaps be added in reference to the view 
of Dr. E. A. Abbott, in the valuable article Gospels con- 
tributed to the new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
He holds that Justin's " Memoirs " included the first three 
Gospels, and these only. These alone were received by the 
Christian community of his time as the authentic records of 
the life and teaching of Christ. If so, how can we explain 
the fact that a pretended Gospel so different in character 
from these, and so inconsistent with them as it is supposed 
to be, should have found universal acceptance in the next 
generation on the part of Christians of the most opposite 
opinions, without trace of controversy, with the slight excep- 
tion of the Alogi previously mentioned ? * 

I have not attempted in the present paper a thorough dis- 
cussion of Justin Martyr's quotations, but only to illustrate 
by some decisive examples the false assumptions on avhich 
the reasoning of Supernatural Religion is founded. In a full 
treatment of the subject, it would be necessary to consider 
the question of Justin's use of apocryphal Gospels, and in 
particular the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" and the 
"Gospel according to Peter," which figure so prominently in 
what calls itself "criticism" {die Kritik) as the pretended 
source of Justin's quotations. This subject has already been 

*See above, p. 136. The work of Hippolytus, of which we know only the title found on 
the cathedra of his statue at Rome, "On [or "In defence of" (vjzep) ] the Gospel according 
to John and the Apocalypse," may have been written in answer to their objections. See 
Bunsen's Hippolyhis, 2d ed. (1854), i. 460. On the Alogi see also Weizsacker, Untersuclmngen 
uber d. evang. Geschichte , p. 226 f., note. 



196 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



referred to ; * but it is impossible to treat it here in detail. 
In respect to "the Gospel according to the Hebrews " I will 
give in a Note some quotations from the article Gospels, 
Apocryphal, by Professor R. A. Lipsius, of Jena, in the 
second volume of Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian 
Biography, published in the present year, with extracts from 
other recent writers, which will sufficiently show how ground- 
less is the supposition that Justin's quotations were mainly 
derived from this Gospel, f Lipsius certainly will not be 
suspected of any " apologetic" tendency. Credner's hypoth- 
esis that the " Gospel according to Peter," which he regards 
as the Gospel used by the Jewish Christians generally, and 
strangely identifies with the Diatessaron of Tatian, was the 
chief source of Justin's quotations, was thoroughly refuted 
by Mr. Norton as long ago as the year 1834 in the Select 
Journal of Foreign Periodical Literature, and afterwards in 
a Note to the first edition of his work on the Genuineness of 
the Gospels. % It is exposed on every side to overwhelming 
objections, and has hardly a shadow of evidence to support 
it. Almost our whole knowledge of this Gospel is derived 
from the account of it by Serapion, bishop of Antioch near 
the end of the second century (a.d. 191-213), who is the first 
writer by whom it is mentioned. || He "found it for the 
most part in accordance with the right doctrine of the 
Saviour," but containing passages favoring the opinions of 
the Docetae, by whom it was used. According to Origen, it 
represented the "brethren" of Jesus as sons of Joseph by a 
former wife.** It was evidently a book of very little note. 
Though it plays a conspicuous part in the speculations of 
modern German scholars and of Supernatural Religion about 

*See above, p. 133 f. 

t See Note C, at the end of this article. 

% Select Jour7ial, etc. (Boston), April, 1834, vol iii., part ii., pp. 234-242; Evidences of the 
Genuineness of the Gospels, vol. i. (1S37), Addit. Notes, pp. ccxxxii.-cclv. See also Bindemann, 
who discusses ably the whole question about Justin Martyr's Gospels, in the Theol. Studien u. 
Kritiken, 1842, pp. 355-482 ; Semisch, Die apostol. Denkiviirdigkeiten u. s. w , pp. 43-59; on the 
other side, Credner, Beitrtige u. s. w., vol. i. (1832); Mayerhoff, Hist.-crit. Einleitnng in die 
petrinischen Schriften (1835), P- 234 ff. ; Hilgenfeld, Krit. Untersuchnngen u. s. w. : p. 259 ff. 

|| Serapion's account of it is preserved by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. 12. 

** Origen, Comm. hi Matt. t. x. § 17, Opp. iii. 462 f. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOUTRH GOSPEL. 



197 



the origin of the Gospels and the quotations of Justin 
Martyr, not a single fragment of it has come down to us. 
This nominis umbra has therefore proved wonderfully con- 
venient for those who have had occasion, in support of their 
hypotheses, "to draw unlimited cheques," as Lightfoot 
somewhere expresses it, "on the bank of the unknown." 
Mr. Norton has shown, by an acute analysis of Serapion's 
account of it, that in all probability it was not an historical, 
but a doctrinal work.* Lipsius remarks: "The statement 
of Theodoret (Hcer. Fab. ii. 2) that the Nazarenes had made 
use of this Gospel rested probably on a misunderstanding. 
The passage moreover in Justin Martyr (Dial. c. TrypJi. 106) 
in which some have thought to find mention of the Memorials 
of Peter is very doubtful. . . . Herewith fall to the ground 
all those hypotheses which make the Gospel of Peter into an 
original work made use of by Justin Martyr, nigh related to 
the Gospel of the Hebrews, and either the Jewish Christian 
basis of our canonical St. Mark [so Hilgenfeld], or, at any 
rate, the Gospel of the Gnosticizing Ebionites " [Volkmar]. f 
To this I would only add that almost the only fact of which 
we are directly informed respecting the contents of the 
so-called "Gospel of Peter" is that it favored the opinions 
of the Docetse, to which Justin Martyr, who wrote a book 
against the Marcionites (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 11. § 8), was 
diametrically opposed. 

Glancing back now over the ground we have traversed, 
we find (1) that the general reception of our four Gospels as 
sacred books throughout the Christian world in the time of 
Irenseus makes it almost certain that the " Memoirs called 
Gospels," "composed by Apostles and their companions," 
which were used by his early contemporary Justin Martyr, 
and were read in the Christian churches of his day as the 
authoritative records of Christ's life and teaching, were the 
same books ; (2) that this presumption is confirmed by the 
actual use which Justin has made of all our Gospels, though 



* Genuineness of the Gospels, 2d ed., vol. iii. (1848), pp. 255-260 ; abridged edition (1867), 
pp. 362-366. 

t Smith and Wace's Diet, of Christian Biog., ii. 712. 



198 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



he has mainly followed, as was natural, the Gospel of 
Matthew, and his direct citations from the Gospel of John, 
and references to it, are few ; (3) that it is still further 
strengthened, in respect to the Gospel of John, by the 
evidences of its use between the time of Justin and that of 
Irenaeus, both by the Catholic Christians and the Gnostics, 
and especially by its inclusion in Tatian's Diatessaron ; (4) 
that, of the two principal assumptions on which the counter- 
argument is founded, one is demonstrably false and the 
other baseless ; and (5) that the particular objections to the 
view that Justin included the Gospel of John in his " Me- 
moirs " are of very little weight. We are authorized then, I 
believe, to regard it as in the highest degree probable, if not 
morally certain, that in the time of Justin Martyr the Fourth 
Gospel was generally received as the work of the Apostle 
John. 

We pass now to our third point, the use of the Fourth 
Gospel by the various Gnostic sects. The length to which 
the preceding discussion has extended makes it necessary to 
treat this part of the subject in a very summary manner. 

The Gnostic sects with which we are concerned became 
conspicuous in the second quarter of the second century, 
under the reigns of Hadrian (a.d. 1 17-138) and Antoninus 
Pius (a.d. 1 38-161). The most prominent among them 
were those founded by Marcion, Valentinus, and Basilides. 
To these may be added the Ophites or Naassenes. 

Marcion has already been referred to.* He prepared a 
Gospel for his followers by striking from the Gospel of Luke 
what was inconsistent with his system, and treated in a sim- 
ilar manner ten of the Epistles of Paul. He rejected the 
other Gospels, not on the ground that they were spurious, 
but because he believed their authors were under the influ- 
ence of Jewish prejudices.! In proof of this, he appealed 
to the passage in the Epistle to the Galatians on which Baur 



* See above, p. 137. 

t See Irenaeus, Hcer. iii. 12. § 12. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



I 99 



and his school lay so much stress. "Marcion," says Ter- 
tullian, " having got the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, 
who reproves even the Apostles themselves for not walking 
straight, according to the truth of the Gospel, . . . endeavors 
to destroy the reputation of those Gospels which are truly 
such, and are published under the name of Apostles, or also 
of apostolic men, in order that he may give to his own the 
credit which he takes away from them." * In another place, 
Tertullian says, addressing Marcion: "If you had not re- 
jected some and corrupted others of the Scriptures which 
contradict your opinion, the Gospel of John would have con- 
futed you." f Again: "Of those historians whom we pos- 
sess, it appears that Marcion selected Luke for his mutila- 
tions." t The fact that Marcion placed his rejection of the 
Gospels on this ground, that the Apostles were but imper- 
fectly enlightened, shows that he could not question their 
apostolic authorship. His reference to the Epistle to the 
Galatians indicates also that the "pillar-apostles" (Gal. ii. 
9), Peter and John, were particularly in his mind. Peter, it 
will be remembered, was regarded as having sanctioned the 
Gospel of Mark. (See above, p. 139.) 

It has been asserted by many modern critics, as Hilgen- 
feld, Volkmar, Scholten, Davidson, and others, that, if Mar- 
cion had been acquainted with the Gospel of John, he would 
have chosen that, rather than Luke, for expurgation, on 
account of its marked anti-Judaic character. But a careful 
comparison of John's Gospel with Marcion's doctrines will 
show that it contradicts them in so many places and so 

*Adv. Marc. iv. 3. Comp. Pressor, cc. 22-24. See also Norton, Genuineness 0/ the 
Gospels, 2d ed., iii. 206 ff., 303 ff. ; or abridged edition, pp. 332 ff., 392 ff. 
f De Came Christ/, c. 3. 

%Adv. Marc. iv. 2. " Lucam videtur Marcion elegisse quern casderet." On account of the 
use of videhir here, Dr. Davidson, following some German critics, says, " Even in speaking 
about Marcion's treatment of Luke, Tertullian puts it forth as a conjecture." {Introd. to the 
Study of the N. T., ii. 305.) A conjecture, when Tertullian has devoted a whole book to the 
refutation of Marcion from those passages of Luke which he retained! The context and all 
the facts of the case show that no doubt can possibly have been intended ; and Tertullian often 
uses videri, not in the sense of <! to seem," but of " to be seen," "to be apparent." See Apol. 
c. 19 ; De Orat. c. 21 ; Adv. Prax. cc. 26, 29; Adv. Jiid. c. 5, from Isa. i. 12 ; and De Prcescr. 
c. 38, which has likewise been misinterpreted. 



200 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



absolutely that it would have been utterly unsuitable for his 
purpose. * 

The theosophic or speculative Gnostics, as the Ophites, 
Valentinians, and Basilidians, found more in John which, by 
ingenious interpretation, they could use in support of their 
systems. f 

It is however to be observed, in regard to the Marcionites, 
as Mr. Norton remarks, " that their having recourse to the 
mutilation of Luke's Gospel shows that no other history of 
Christ's ministry existed more favorable to their doctrines ; 
that, in the first half of the second century, when Marcion 
lived, there was no Gnostic Gospel in being to which he 
could appeal." f 

We pass now to Valentinus. It has already appeared that 
the later Valentinians, represented by Ptolemy, Heracleon, 
and the Excerpta Theodoti, received the Gospel of John 
without question. || The presumption is therefore obviously 
very strong that it was so received by the founder of the 
sect. ** That this was so is the representation of Tertullian. 
He contrasts the course pursued by Marcion and Valentinus. 
" One man," he says, " perverts the Scriptures with his 
hand, another by his exposition of their meaning. For, 
if it appears that Valentinus uses the entire document, — 
si Valentinus integro instrumento uti videtur, — he has yet 
done violence to the truth more artfully than Marcion." 
For Marcion, he goes on to say, openly used the knife, 
not the pen ; Valentinus has spared the Scriptures, but 
explains them away, or thrusts false meanings into them. ft 

* See on this point Bleek, Einl. in d. N. T., 3d ed. (1875), p. 158, ff., with Mangold's note, 
who remarks that " it was simply impossible for Marcion to choose the fourth Gospel" for this pur- 
pose ; also Weizsacker, Untersuchungen uber d. evang. Geschichte (1864), p. 230, ff. ; Luthardt, 
Die johan. Ur sprung des vierten Ev. (1874), p. 92, or Eng. trans., p. 108 f. ; Godet, Comm. sur 
Vevangile de St. Jean, 2d ed., torn. i. (1876), p. 270 f.,or Eng. trans., i. 222 f. 

t On the use of the N.T. by the Valentinians, see particularly G. Heinrici, Die valentinian- 
ische Gnosis und die Heilige Schrift, Berlin, 1871. 

t Genuineness of the Gospels, 2d ed., iii. 304; abridged ed., p. 392 f. 

|| See above, p. 178 f. 

**On this point, see Norton, Genuineness, etc., 2d ed., iii. 321 f. ; abridged ed., p. 403 f. 
tt Tertullian, Prcescr. c. 38. On the use of the word videtur, see above, p. 199, note % . 
The context shows that no doubt is intended. If, however, the word should be taken in the sense 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 201 



The testimony of Tertullian is apparently confirmed by 
■Hippolytus, who, in a professed account of the doctrines of 
Valentinus (Ref. Hcer. vi. 21-37, or ID ~32, Eng. trans.; 
comp. the introduction, §3), says: "All the prophets, there- 
fore, and the Law spoke from the Demiurgus, a foolish God, 
he says, [and spoke] as fools, knowing nothing. Therefore, 
says he, the Saviour says, ' All who have come before me 
are thieves and robbers ' (John x. 8) ; and the Apostle, ' The 
mystery which was not made known to former generations' " 
(Eph. iii. 4, 5). Here, however, it is urged that Hippolytus, 
in his account of Valentinus, mixes up references to Valen- 
tinus and his followers in such a manner that we cannot be 
sure that, in the use of the faoi t "he says," he is not quoting 
from some one of his school, and not the master. A full ex- 
hibition of the facts and discussion of the question cannot 
be given here. I believe there is a strong presumption that 
Hippolytus is quoting from a work of Valentinus: the reg- 
ular exposition of the opinions of his disciples, Secundus, 
Ptolemy, and Heracleon, does not begin till afterwards, in 
c. 38, or c. 33 of the English translation ; but it is true that, 
in the present text, fact is used vaguely toward the end of 
c. 35, where the opinions of the Italian and Oriental schools 
are distinguished in reference to a certain point. I there- 
fore do not press this quotation as direct proof of the use of 
the Fourth Gospel by Valentinus himself. 

Next to Marcion and Valentinus, the most eminent 
among the founders of early Gnostic sects was Basilides, of 
Alexandria. He flourished about a.d. 125. In the Homi- 
lies on Luke generally ascribed to Origen, though some 
have questioned their genuineness, we are told, in an ac- 
count of apocryphal Gospels, that " Basilides had the au- 
dacity to write a Gospel according to Basilides."* Ambrose 
and Jerome copy this account in the prefaces to their re- 

of "seems," the contrast must be between the ostensible use of the Scriptures by Valentinus and 
his virtual rejection of them by imposing upon them a sense contrary to their teaching. Comp. 
Irenaeus, Hrer. iii. 12. § 12: " scripturas quidem confitentes, interpretationes vero convertunt." 
So Hcer. i. 3. § 6; iii. 14. § 4. 

* So the Greek : Origen, Horn. i. in Luc, Opp. iii. 932, note ; the Latin in Jerome's transla- 
tion reads, " Ausus fuit et Basilides scribere evangelium, et suo illud nomine titulare." 

jm 27 



202 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



spective commentaries on Luke and Matthew ; but there is 
no other notice of such a Gospel, or evidence of its existence, 
in all Christian antiquity, so far as is known. The work 
referred to could not have been a history of Christ's minis- 
try, set up by Basilides and his followers in opposition to 
the Gospels received by the catholic Christians. In that 
case, we should certainly have heard of it from those who 
wrote in opposition to his heresy ; but he and his followers 
are, on the contrary, represented as appealing to our Gospels 
of Matthew, Luke, and John ; * and Hippolytus states ex- 
pressly that the Basilidian account of all things concerning 
the Saviour subsequent to the birth of Jesus agreed with 
that given "in the Gospels." f The origin of the error is 
easily explained : a work in which Basilides set forth his 
view of the Gospel, i.e. of the teaching of Christ, might 
naturally be spoken of as "the Gospel according to Basil- 
ides." % We have an account of such a work. Agrippa 
Castor, a contemporary of Basilides, and who, according to 
Eusebius, wrote a very able refutation of him, tells us that 
Basilides " composed twenty-four books on the Gospel," uqrb 
ebayy&cov. || Clement of Alexandria, who is one of our prin- 
cipal authorities for his opinions, cites his 'E^yj^/cd, " Exposi- 
tions," or "Interpretations," quoting a long passage from 
"the twenty-third book."** In the "Dispute between 
Archelaus and Manes," the "thirteenth treatise" of Basi- 
lides is cited, containing an explanation of the parable of 
the Rich Man and Lazarus. ff I agree with Dr. Hort in 
thinking it exceedingly probable that the work of Basilides 
which Hippolytus cites so often in his account of his opin- 
ions is the same which is quoted by Clement and Archelaus, 
and mentioned by Agrippa Castor. J J Lipsius remarks : — 

* Besides the work of Hippolytus, to be further noticed, see the passages from Clement of 
Alexandria and Epiphanius in Kirchhofer's Quellensammlung, p. 415 f. 
t Ref. Hcer. c. 27, or c. 16, Eng. trans. 

$ On this use of the term "Gospel," see Norton, Genuineness^ etc., iii. 224 ff., or abridged 
edition, p. 343 f. 

|| Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 7. §§ 6, 7. 
** Strom, iv. 12, p. 599 f. 

ft Archelai et Manet is Disputatio, c. 55, in Routh, Rell. sacrce, ed. alt., v. 197. 

tt See the art. Basilides in Smith and Wace's Diet, of Christian Biog., vol. i. (1S77), p. 271. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 203 



In any case, the work must have been an exposition of some Gospel 
by whose authority Basilides endeavored to establish his Gnostic doc- 
trine. And it is anyhow most unlikely that he would have written a 
commentary on a Gospel of his own composition. Of our canonical 
Gospels, those of Matthew, Luke, and John, were used in his school; and 
from the fragments just referred to we ma}^ reasonably conclude that it 
was the Gospel of Luke on which he wrote his commentary.* 

On this it may be observed, that the phrase of Agrippa 
Castor, " twenty-four books on the Gospel," excludes the 
idea that any particular Gospel, like that of Luke, could be 
intended. Such a Gospel would have been named or other- 
wise defined. The expression to ebayyeTuov, if it refers to any 
book, must signify, in accordance with that use of the term 
which has before been illustrated,! "the Gospels" collec- 
tively. It is so understood by Norton, J Tischendorf, Lu- 
thardt, Godet, and others. It would not in itself necessarily 
denote precisely our four Gospels, though their use by 
Justin Martyr, and the fact that Luke and John are quoted 
and commented on by Basilides, and Matthew apparently 
referred to by him, would render this extremely probable. 

There is, however, another sense of the word "Gospel" as 
used by Basilides, — namely, "the knowledge (gnosis) of su- 
permundane things " (Hippol. Ref. Hcer. vii. 27) ; and " the 
Gospel " in this sense plays a prominent part in his system 
as set forth by Hippolytus. The " twenty-four books on 
the Gospel " mentioned by Agrippa Castor, the " Exposi- 
tions " or "Interpretations" of Clement, may perhaps have 
related to " the Gospel " in this sense. We cannot there- 
fore, I think, argue confidently from this title that Basilides 
wrote a Commentary r on our Four Gospels, though it natu- 
rally suggests this. It is evident, at any rate, that he 
supported his gnosis by far-fetched interpretations of the 
sayings of Christ as recorded in our Gospels ; and that the 
supposition that he had a Gospel of his own composition, in 
the sense of a history of Christ's life and teaching, has not 
only no positive support of any strength, but is on various 



*See the art. Gospels in the work just cited, ii. 715. 
t See above, p. 140. 

X See Norton's Genuineness of the Gospels, 2d ed., iii. 235-239, or abridged edition, p. 351 ff. 



204 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



accounts utterly improbable. That he used an apocryphal 
Gospel not of his own composition is a supposition for 
which there is not a particle of evidence of any kind whatever. 

I have spoken of Basilides as quoting the Gospel of John 
in the citations from him by Hippolytus. The passages are 
the following: "And this, he says, is what is said in the 
Gospels : ' The true light, which enlighteneth every man, 
was coming into the world.'" (Ref. Hcer.vii. 22, ore. 10, 
Eng. trans.) The words quoted agree exactly with John 
i. 9 in the Greek, though I have adopted a different con- 
struction from that of the common version in translating. 
Again, " And that each thing, he says, has its own seasons, 
the Saviour is a sufficient witness, when he says, ' My -hour 
is not yet come.' " (Ref. Hcer. vii. 27, al. 15 ; John ii. 4.) 

Here two objections are raised: first, that we cannot 
infer from the i>w>, "he says," that Hippolytus is quoting 
from a treatise by Basilides himself ; and, secondly, that the 
system of Basilides as set forth by Hippolytus represents a 
later development of the original scheme, — in other words, 
that he is quoting the writings and describing the opinions 
of the disciples of the school, and not of its founder. 

To analyze the account of Hippolytus and give the rea- 
sons for taking a different view would require an article by 
itself, and cannot be undertaken here. But on the first 
point I will quote a writer who will not be suspected of an 
" apologetic " tendency, Matthew Arnold. He says : — 

It is true that the author of the Philosophumena [another name 
for the " Refutation of all Heresies " commonly ascribed to Hippolytus] 
sometimes mixes up the opinions of the master of a school with those 
of his followers, so that it is difficult to distinguish between them. But, 
if we take all doubtful cases of the kind and compare them with our 
present case, we shall find that it is not one of them. It is not true 
that here, where the name of Basileides has come just before, and 
where no mention of his son or of his disciples has intervened since, 
there is any such ambiguity as is found in other cases. It is not true 
that the author of the Philosophumena wields the subjectless he says in 
the random manner alleged, with no other formula for quotation both 
from the master and from the followers. In general, he uses the for- 
mula according to them (/car' avrovg) when he quotes from the school, and 
the formula he says {(bw>) when he gives the dicta of the master. And 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



205 



in this particular case lie manifestly quotes the dicta of Basileides, and 
no one who had not a theory to serve would ever dream of doubting it. 
Basileides, therefore, about the year 125 of our era, had before him the 
Fourth Gospel.* 

On the second point, the view that Hippolytus as con- 
trasted with Irenaeus has given an account of the system of 
Basilides himself is the prevailing one among scholars : it is 
held, for example, by Jacobi, Bunsen, Baur, Hase, Uhlhorn, 
Moller, Mansel, Pressense, and Dr. Hort. The principal 
representative of the opposite opinion is Hilgenfeld, with 
whom agree Lipsius, Volkmar, and Scholten.f Dr. Hort 
has discussed the matter very ably and fairly in his article 
Basilides in Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biog- 
raphy; and, so far as I can judge, his conclusions are sound. 

In view of all the evidence, then, I think we have good 
reason for believing that the Gospel of John was one of a 
collection of Gospels, probably embracing our four, which 
Basilides and his followers received as authoritative about 
the year 125. 

The first heretics described by Hippolytus are the Oriental 
Gnostics, — the Ophites, or Naassenes, and the Peratae, a 
kindred sect. They are generally regarded as the earliest 
Gnostics. Hippolytus cites from their writings numerous 
quotations from the Gospel of John. J But it is the view 
of many scholars that Hippolytus is really describing the 
opinions and quoting the writings of the later representa- 
tives of these sects. Not having investigated this point suf- 
ficiently, I shall argue only from what is undisputed. 

Were I undertaking a full discussion of the external evi- 
dences of John's authorship of the Fourth Gospel, it would 
be necessary to consider here some questions about Papias, 

* Matthew Arnold, God and the Bible (1875X p. 268 f., Eng. ed. See, to the same effect 
Weizsacker, Untersuchungen u. s. w., p. 232 ff. Compare Dr. Hort, art. Basilides in Smith and 
Wace's Diet, of Christian Biog., i. 271, and Westcott, Canon of the N. T., 4th ed., p. 288. On 
the other side, see Scholten, Die altesten Zeugnisse u. s. w. (1867)1, P- 65 f. ; Sup. Rel., ii. 51, 
7th ed., and the writers whom he there cites. 

t The two most recent discussions are that by Jacobi, in Brieger's Zeitschrift fur Kirchen- 
geschichte, 1876-77, i. 481-544, and, on the other side, by Hilgenfeld, in his Zeitschrift f. wiss. 
Theol., 1878, xxi. 228-250, where the literature of the subject is given pretty fully. Moeller, in a 
brief notice of the two articles (Brieger's Zeitschrift, 1877-78, ii. 422), adheres to his former view, 
versus Hilgenfeld. 

XRef. Hcer. v. 7-9 (Naassenes), 12, 16, 17 (Peratae). 



206 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



and his use of the First Epistle of John, as reported by 
Eusebius ; also the apparent reference to the First Epistle 
of John by Polycarp, and his relation to Trenseus ; and, fur- 
ther, to notice the Ignatian Epistles, the " Testaments of 
the Twelve Patriarchs," and the Epistle to Diognetus. On 
the first two subjects, and on "The Silence of Eusebius," 
connected with the former, I would refer to the very able 
articles of Professor (now Bishop) Lightfoot in the Contem- 
porary Review* As to the Ignatian Epistles, their genuine- 
ness in any form is questionable, to say nothing of the state 
of the text, though the shorter Epistles may belong, in sub- 
stance, to the middle of the second century; the "Testa- 
ments of the Twelve Patriarchs " are interpolated, and need 
a thoroughly critical edition ; and the date of the Epistle to 
Diognetus is uncertain. In any event, I do not think the 
references to the Gospel of John in these writings are of 
great importance. 

But to return to our proper subject. The use of the 
Gospel of John by the Gnostic sects, in the second century, 
affords a strong, it may seem decisive, argument for their 
genuineness. However ingeniously they might pervert its 
meaning, it is obvious to every intelligent reader that this 
Gospel is, in reality, diametrically opposed to the essential 
principles of Gnosticism. The Christian Fathers, in their 
contests with the Gnostics, found it an armory of weapons. 
Such being the case, let us suppose it to have been forged 
about the middle of the second century, in the heat of the 
Gnostic controversy. It was thus a book which the founders 
of the Gnostic sects, who flourished ten, twenty, or thirty 
years before, had never heard of. How is it possible, then, 
to explain the fact that their followers should have not only 
received it, but have received it, so far as appears, without 
question or discussion ? It must have been received by the 

* Contemporary Review, January, 1875, xxv. 169 ff., "The Silence of Eusebius"; May, 1875, 
p. 827 ff., " Polycarp of Smyrna"; August and October, 1875, xxvi. 377 ff., 828 ff., "Papias 
of Hierapolis." On " the silence of Eusebius," see also Westcott, Canon of the N. T., 4th ed., 
p. 229 f. With Lightfoot's article in the Contemp. Review for February, 1875, "The Ignatian 
Epistles," should be compared the Preface to Supernatural Religion, in the sixth and later 
editions of that work. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 20J 

founders of these sects from the beginning; and we have no 
reason to distrust the testimony of Hippolytus to what is 
under these circumstances so probable, and is attested by 
other evidence. But, if received by the founders of these 
sects, it must have been received at the same time by the 
catholic Christians. They would not, at a later period, 
have taken the spurious work from the heretics with whom 
they were in controversy. It was then generally received, 
both by Gnostics and their opponents, between the years 
120 and 130. What follows ? It follows that the Gnostics 
of that date received it because they could not help it. 
They would not have admitted the authority of a book which 
could be reconciled with their doctrines only by the most 
forced interpretation, if they could have destroyed its au- 
thority by denying its genuineness. Its genuineness could 
then be easily ascertained. Ephesus was one of the prin- 
cipal cities of the Eastern world, the centre of extensive 
commerce, the metropolis of Asia Minor. Hundreds, if not 
thousands, of people were living who had known the Apos- 
tle John. The question whether he, the beloved disciple, 
had committed to Avriting his recollections of his Master's 
life and teaching, was one of the greatest interest. The 
fact of the reception of the Fourth Gospel as his work at 
so early a date, by parties so violently opposed to each 
other, proves that the evidence of its genuineness was deci- 
sive. This argument is further confirmed by the use of the 
Gospel by the opposing parties in the later Montanistic con- 
troversy, and in the disputes about the time of celebrating 
Easter. 

The last external evidence which I shall adduce in favor 
of the genuineness of the Gospel of John is of a very early 
date, being attached to the Gospel itself, and found in all 
the copies which have come down to us, whether in the orig- 
inal or in ancient versions. I refer to what is now num- 
bered as the twenty-fifth verse, with the lasi" half of the 
twenty-fourth, of the concluding chapter of the Gospel. 
The last three verses of the chapter read thus : " Hence 



208 INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

this report spread among the brethren, that that disciple 
was not to die ; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would 
not die ; but, If I will that he remain till I come, what is 
that to thee ? This is the disciple that testifieth concerning 
these things, and wrote these things." Here, I suppose, 
the author of the Gospel ended. The addition follows : 
"And we know that his testimony is true. And there are 
many other things that Jesus did, which, if they should be 
severally written, / do not think that the world itself would 
contain the books written." 

In the words "And we know that his testimony is true," 
we manifestly have either a real or a forged attestation to 
the truth and genuineness of the Gospel. Suppose the 
Gospel written by an anonymous forger of the middle of the 
second century : what possible credit could he suppose 
would be given to it by an anonymous attestation like this ? 
A forger with such a purpose would have named his pre- 
tended authority, and have represented the attestation as 
formally and solemnly given. The attestation, as it stands, 
clearly presupposes that the author (or authors) of it was 
known to those who first received the copy of the Gospel 
containing it; 

What view, then, are we to take of it ? The following 
supposition, which I give in the words of Mr. Norton, 
affords an easy and natural explanation, and, so far as I can 
see, the only plausible explanation of the phenomena. Mr. 
Norton says : — 

According to ancient accounts, St. John wrote his Gospel at Ephesus, 
over the church in which city he presided during the latter part of his 
long life. It is not improbable that, before his death, its circulation had 
been confined to the members of that church. Hence copies of it would 
be afterwards obtained ; and the copy provided for transcription was, we 
may suppose, accompanied by the strong attestation which we now find, 
given by the church, or the elders of the church, to their full faith in the 
accounts which it contained, and by the concluding remark, made by the 
writer of this attestation in his own person.* 

The style of this addition, it is further to be observed, 



Norton, Genuineness of the Gospels, 2d ed., vol. i., Addit. Notes, p. xcv. f. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 200, 



differs from that of the writer of the Gospel. It was prob- 
ably first written a little separate from the text, and after- 
wards became incorporated with it by a natural mistake of 
transcribers. According to Tischendorf, the last verse of 
this Gospel in the Codex Sinaiticus is written in a different 
hand from the preceding, though by a contemporary scribe. 
He accordingly rejects it as not having belonged to the 
Gospel as it was originally written. Tregelles does not 
agree with him on the palaeographical question. 

The passage we have been considering suggests various 
questions and remarks, but cannot be further treated here. 
I will only refer to the recent commentaries of Godet and 
Westcott, and end abruptly the present discussion, which 
has already extended to a far greater length than was 
originally intended. 

Note A. (See p. 140.) 

On the quotations of Matt. xi. 27 {comp. Luke x. 22) in the writings 
of the Christian Fathers. 

Justin Martyr {Dial. c. 100) quotes the following as "written in the Gospel": 

" All things have been delivered (Trapadedorai) to me by the Father ; and no 
one knoweth (yivcocKei) the Father save the Son, neither [knoweth any one] the 
Son save the Father, and they to whomsoever the Son may reveal him " (olg av 
6 vibg airoKciAvipri). In the Apology (c. 63) he quotes the passage twice, thus : " No 
one knew (or " hath known," eyvu) the Father save the Son, neither [knoweth 
any one] the Son save the Father, and they to whomsoever the Son may reveal 
him " ; the order of the words, however, varying in the last clause, in which 
6 viog stands once after inroKa/ivipy. 

It is unnecessary to quote the corresponding passages in our Gospels in full, 
as the reader can readily turn to them. The variations of Justin are, (1) the 
use of the perfect {-apafiefiorai), "have been delivered," instead of the aorist 
{-apedodi]), strictly, "were delivered," thqugh our idiom often requires the aorist 
to be translated by the perfect; (2) " the Father " for " my Father" (omitting 
fwv) • (3) the use, in two out of three instances, of the aorist eyvco, " knew," or 
" hath known," instead of the present yivaaKec (this is the word used by Luke ; 
Matthew has hire) ivaoKei) • (4) the transposition of the two principal clauses; 
(5) the omission of rig eKiytvamei, "knoweth any one," in the second clause, if 
we compare Matthew, or the substitution of "the Father" and "the Son" for 
"who the Father is" and "who the Son is," if we compare Luke; (6) the use 
of the plural (oig av), "they to whomsoever," instead of the singular (cj av), "he 
to whomsoever"; and (7) the substitution of "may reveal" (a-nOKa?ivipri) for 
"may will to reveal" (j3ov?i,r/rai d-nOKa/ivipat) . 

The author of Supernatural Religion devotes more than ten pages to this pas- 
28 



2IO INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

sage (vol. i. pp. 401-412, 7th ed.), which he regards as of great importance, and 
insists, on the ground of these variations, that Justin could not have taken it from 
our Gospels. To follow him step by step would be tedious. His fundamental 
error is the assertion that " the peculiar form of the quotation in Justin" (here he 
refers especially to the variations numbered 3 and 4, above) " occurred in what 
came to be considered heretical Gospels, and constituted the basis of important 
Gnostic doctrines " (p. 403). Again, "Here we have the exact quotation twice 
made by Justin, with the eyvo and the same order, set forth as the reading of the 
Gospels of the Marcosians and other sects, and the highest testimony to their 
system " (pp. 406, 407). Yet again, "Irenaeus states with equal distinctness that 
Gospels used by Gnostic sects had the reading of Justin" (p. 411). Now 
Irenaeus nowhere states any such thing. Irenaeus nowhere speaks, nor does any 
other ancient writer, of a Gospel of the Marcosians. If this sect had set up 
a Gospel (i.e., a history of Christ's ministry) of its own, in opposition to the 
Four Gospels received by the whole Christian Church in the time of Irenaeus, 
we should have had unequivocal evidence of the fact. The denunciations of 
Marcion for mutilating the Gospel of Luke show how such a work would have 
been treated. Irenaeus is indignant that the Valentinians should give to 
" a recent work of their own composition " the name of " The Gospel of the 
Truth" or "The True Gospel" {Hcer. iii. 11. §9); but this was in all prob- 
ability a doctrinal or speculative, not an historical work. * The Valentinians 
received our four Gospels without controversy, and argued from them in sup- 
port of their doctrines as best they could. (See Irenaeus, Hcer. i. cc. 7, 8, for 
numerous examples of their arguments from the Gospels; and compare iii. 11. 
§ 7 ; 12. § 12 ; and Tertull. Prcrscr. c. 38.) 

Correcting this fundamental error of the author of Siiper natural Religion, the 
facts which he himself states respecting the various forms in which this passage 
is quoted by writers who unquestionably used our four Gospels as their sole or 
main authority, are sufficient to show the groundlessness of his conclusion. But 
for the sake of illustrating the freedom of the Christian Fathers in quotation, 
and the falsity of the premises on which this writer reasons, I will exhibit the 
facts somewhat more fully than they have been presented elsewhere, though 
the quotations of this passage have been elaborately discussed by Credner,t 
Semisch,J HilgenfeldJ Volckmar,** and Westcott.tf Of these discussions 
those by Semisch and Volckmar are particularly valuable. 

I will now notice all the variations of Justin from the text of our Gospels 
in this passage (see above), comparing them with those found in other writers. 
The two most important (Nos. 3 and 4) will be examined last. 

1. irapadhhraL for rrapedod?} is wholly unimportant. It is found in Luke x. 22 



* See Norton, Genuineness of the Gospels, iii. 227 f. ; Westcott, Canon of the N. T., 4th ed., 
p. 297 f. ; Lipsius, art. Gospels, Apocryphal, in Smith and Wace's Diet, of Christian Biog., vol. 
ii. (1880), p. 717. 

t Beitrdge zur Einl. in die biblischen Schriften (1832), i. pp. 248-251. 
% Die apostol. Denkwiirdigkeiteu des Mart. Justinus (1848), pp. 364-370. 
|| Kritische Untersuchungen uber die Evangelien Justin' 's, u. s. w. (1850), pp. 201-206. 
**Das Evang. Marcions (1852), pp. 75-80. I follow the title in spelling "Volckmar." 
tt Canon of the N. T , 4th ed. (1875), pp. 133-135. See also Sanday, The Gospels in the 
Second Century, pp. 132, 133, and chaps, ii., iv., vi. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



211 



in the uncial MSS. K and IT, the cursives 60, 253, p scr , w scr , three of Colbert's 
MSS. (see Wetstein in loc. and his Prolegom. p. 48), and in Hippolytus {Noet. 
c. 6), not heretofore noticed. 

2. " The Father " for " my Father," /uov being omitted, is equally trivial; so 
in the Sinaitic MS. and the cursive 71 in Matthew, and in Luke the Codex 
Bezae (D), with some of the best MSS. of the Old Latin and Vulgate versions, 
and other authorities (see Tischendorf), also Hippolytus as above. 

5. The omission of tlq kiriytvuoKei or its equivalent in the second clause is 
found in the citation of the Marcosians in Irenaeus (i. 20. § 3), other Gnostics 
in Irenaeus (iv. 6. § 1), and in Irenaeus himself three times (ii. 6. § 1 ; iv. 6. §§3, 
7, but not §1). It occurs twice in Clement of Alexandria {Pad. i. 9, p. 150 
ed. Potter; Strom, i. 28, p. 425), once in Origen {Cels. vi. 17, p. 643), once in 
Athanasius (Onit. cont. Arian. iii. c. 46, p. 596), 6 times in Epiphanius 
{Ancor. c. 67, p. 71, repeated Hcer. Ixxiv. 4, p. 891 ; c. 73, p. 78, repeated Hcer. 
lxxiv. 10, p. 898; and Hcer. lxiv. 9, p. 643; lxxvi. 7, 29, 32, pp. 943, 977, 981); 
once in Chrysostom {In Joan. Ho??i. lx. §1, Opp. viii. 353 (404) A, ed. Montf.), 
once in Pseudo-Cyril {De Trin. c. 1), once in Maximus Confessor {Schol. in 
Dion. Areop. de div. A r om. c. 1. § 2, in Migne, Patrol. Gr. iv. 189), once in 
Joannes Damascenus {De Fide Orth. i. 1) and twice in Georgius Pachy- 
MERES {Pa?'aphr. in Dion. Areop. de div. Nom. c. 1, §1, and de myst. Theol. c. 
5; Migne, iii. 613, 1061). It is noticeable that the Clementine Homilies 
(xvii. 4; xviii. 4, 13 bis, 20) do not here agree with Justin. 

6. There is no difference between dig av, "they to whomsoever," and w av (or 
kav), " he to whomsoever," so far as the sense is concerned. The plural, which 
Justin uses, is found in the Clementine Homilies 5 times (xvii. 4; xviii. 4, 
13 bis, 20), and Iren^EUS 5 times {Hcer. ii. 6. § 1 ; iv. 6. §§ 3, 4, 7, and so the 
Syriac ; 7. §3). The singular is used in the citations given by Irenaeus from the 
Marcosians (i. 20. §3) and "those who would be wiser than the Apostles," as 
well as in his own express quotation from Matthew {Hcer. iv. 6. § 1) ; and so by 
the Christian Father^ generally. 

7. The next variation {die; av) 6 vide; cnroKa?iVil>ri for /3ov Ararat aTcoKaAvipai is a 
natural shortening of the expression, which we find in the citation of the Mar- 
cosians (Iren. i. 20. § 3) and in Iren^us himself 5 times (ii. 6. § 1 ; iv. 6. §§ 3, 4, 
7, and so the Syriac ; 7. § 3) ; in Tertullian twice {Marc. iv. 25 ; Prcescr. c. 21), 
and perhaps in Marcion's mutilated Luke; in Clement of Alexandria 
5 times {Cohort, i. 10, p. 10 ; Peed. 1. 5, p. 109; Strom, i. 28, p. 425; v. 13, p. 697 ; 
vii. 18, p. 901 ; — Quis dives, etc., c. 8, p. 939, is a mere allusion); Origen 4 
times {Cels. vi. 17, p. 643 ; vii. 44, p. 726 ; in Joan. torn. i. c. 42, p. 45 ; torn, xxxii. 
c. 18, p. 450) ; the Synod of Antioch against Paul of Samosata (Routh, Pell, 
sacra, ed. alt. iii. 290) ; Eusebius or Marcellus in Eusebius 3 times {Eccl. 
Theol. i. 15, 16, pp. 76°, 77 d , aTToiiaAvipei; Eel. proph. i. 12 [Migne, Patrol. Gr. xxii. 
col. 1065], (iTzonaAv^ri) ; Athanasius 4 or 5 times {Becret. Nic. Syn. c. 12, Opp. 
i. 218 ed. Bened. ; Orat. cont. Arian. i. c. 12, p. 416; c. 39, p. 443; iii. c. 46, p. 
596, in the best MSS.; Serm. maj. de Fide, c. 27, in Montf. Coll. nova, ii. 14); 
Cyril of Jerusalem twice {Cat. vi. 6; x. 1); Epiphanius 4 times {Ancor. c. 
67, p. 71, repeated Haer. lxxiv. 4, p. 891, but here a-rroKaXvirru or -tti; Hcer. lxv. 
6, p. 613; and without 6 vlog, Hcer. lxxvi. 7, p. 943; c. 29, p. 977) ; Basil the 
Great {Adv. Eunom. v. Opp. i. 311 (441) A); Cyril of Alexandria 3 times 
{Thes. Opp. v. 131, 149; Cont. Jidian. viii. Opp. vi. b. p. 270). 



212 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



All of these variations are obviously unimportant, and natural in quoting from 
memory, and the extent to which they occur in writers who unquestionably used 
our Gospels as their sole or main authority shows that their occurrence in Justin 
affords no ground for supposing that he did not also so use them. 

We will then turn our attention to the two variations on which the main stress 
is laid by the author of Supernatural Religion. He greatly exaggerates their 
importance, and neglects an obvious explanation of their origin. 

3. We find h/vu, "knew," or "hath known," for yivuGKEi or ETriyivtJG kei , in the 
Clementine Homilies 6 times (xvii. 4; xviii. 4, 11, 13 bis, 20), and once appar- 
ently in the Recognitions (ii. 47, novit) ; twice in Tertullian {Adv. Marc. ii. 
27 ; Pr.cescr. c. 21) ; in Clement of Alexandria 6 times {Cohort, i. 10, p. 10; 
Peed. i. 5, p. 109; i. 8, p. 142 ; i. 9, p. 150 ; Strom, i. 28, p. 425; v. 13, p. 697 ; — 
once the present, yivuGKEi, Strom, vii. 18, p. 901 ; and once, in a mere allusion, 
ETTiyivuGKS/, Quis dives, etc., c. 8, p. 939) ; Origen uniformly, 10 times {Opp. i. 440, 
643, 726; ii. 537; iv. 45, 234, 284, 315, 450 bis), and in the Latin version of his 
writings of which the Greek is lost novit is used 10 times, including Opp. iii. 58, 
where novit is used for Matthew and scit for Luke ; scit occurs also Opp. iv. 515. 
The Synod of Antioch versus Paul of Samosata has it once (Routh, Rell. sacrce, 
iii. 290) ; Alexander of Alexandria once {Epist. ad Alex. c. 5, Migne, Pair. 
Gr. xviii. 556); Eusebius 6 times {Eccl. Theol. i. 12, 16, pp. 72°, 77 d ; Dem. 
Evang. iv. 3, v. 1, pp. 149°, 216 d ; Eel.proph. i. 12, Migne xxii. 1065; Hist. 
Eccl. i. 2. §2) ; Didymus of Alexandria once {De Trin. ii. 5, p. 142); Epipha- 
nius twice {Her. lxv. 6, p. 613; lxxiv. 10, p. 898). — Of these writers, Alexander 
has ohk once ; Eusebius yivcjanEi or k-iyivuoKec 3 times, Didymus ytvuctcEi fol- 
lowed by h~i.yiv6)GKEL 3 times, Epiphanius has ohk 9 or 10 times, and it is found 
also in Basil, Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria. Marcellus in Eusebius 
{Eccl. Theol. i. 15, 16, pp. 76°, 78*) wavers between olde (twice) and yivuonEi or 
E-iyivucKEi (once), and perhaps iyvu (c. 16, p. 77 d ). 

4. We find the transposition of the clauses, " No one knoweth [or knew] 
the Father" coming first, in one MS. in Matthew (Matthaei's d) and two in Luke 
(the uncial U and i scr ), in the Diatessaron of Tatian as its text is given in the 
Armenian version of Ephraem's Commentary upon it, translated into Latin by 
Aucher, and published by G. Moesinger {Evangelii concordantis Expositio, etc., 
Venet. 1876),* the Clementine Homilies 5 times (xvii. 4; xviii. 4, 13 bis, 20), 
the Marcosians in Irenaeus (i. 20. §3), other Gnostics in Irenaeus (iv. 6. § 1), 
and Irenaeus himself (ii. 6. § 1 ; iv. 6. § 3, versus § 1 and § 7, Lat., but here a 
Syriac version represented by a MS. of the 6th century, gives the transposed 
form; see Harvey's Irenaeus, ii. 443), Tertullian once {Adv. Marc. iv. 25), 
Origen once {De Princip. ii. 6. § 1, Opp. i. 89, in a Latin version), the Synod 
of Antioch against Paul of Samosata (as cited above), the Marcionite in 
Pseudo-Orig. Dial, de recta in Deum fide, sect. i. Opp. i. 817) ; Eusebius 4 
times {Eccl. Theol. i. 12; Dem. Evang. iv. 3, v. 1 ; Hist. Eccl. i. 2. §2) 3 Alexan- 
der of Alexandria once {Epist. ad Alex. c. 12, Migne xviii. 565) ; Athanasius 
twice {In Mud, Omnia mihi tradita sunt, c. 5, Opp. i. 107 ; Serm. may. de Fide, c. 
27, in Montf. Coll. nova, ii. 14), Didymus once {De Trin. i. 26, p. 72), Epipha- 
nius 7 times, or 9 times if the passages transferred from the Ancoratus are reck- 
oned {Opp. i. 766, 891, 898, 977, 9S1 ; ii. 16, 19, 67, 73), Chrysostom once {In 



* This reads (pp. 117, 216), "Nemo novit Patrem nisi Filius, et nemo novit Filium nisi Pater." 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



213 



Ascens., etc., c. 14, Opp. iii. 771 (931) ed. Montf.), Pseudo-Cyril of Alexan- 
dria once {De Trin. c. 1, Opp. vi. c. p. 1), Pseudo-Caesarius twice {Dial. 
i. resp. 3 and 20, in Migne xxxviii. 861, 877), Maximus Confessor once {ScJwl. 
in Dion. Areop. de div. JVom. c. 1. §2, in Migne iv. 189), Joannes Damas- 
cene once {De Fide Orth. i. 1), and Georgius Pachymeres once {Paraphr. 
in Dion. Areop. de div. JVom. c. 1. §1, in Migne iii. 613). 

This transposition is found in MS. b of the Old Latin, and some of the 
Latin Fathers, e.g., Phaebadius (Cont. Ariau. c. 10) ; and most MSS. of the Old 
Latin, and the Vulgate, read novit in Matthew instead of sett or cognoscit, which 
they have in Luke ; but it is not worth while to explore this territory here. 

It is manifest from this presentation of the facts that the variations to which 
the author of Supernatural Religion attaches so much importance, — the trans- 
position of the clauses, and the use of the past tense for the present, — being com- 
mon to Justin not only with the Gnostics, but with a multitude of the Christian 
Fathers, can afford no proof or presumption that the source of his quotation 
was not our present Gospels — that he does not use in making it {Dial. c. 100) 
the term " the Gospel " in the same sense in which it is used by his later con- 
temporaries. It indeed seems probable that the reading e } vu, though not in the 
MSS. which have come down to us, had already found its way into some MSS. 
of the second century, particularly in Matthew. Its almost uniform occurrence 
in the numerous citations of the passage by Clement of Alexandria and Origen, 
and the reading of the Old Latin MSS. and of the Vulgate, favor this view. 
The transposition of the clauses may also have been found in some MSS. of 
that date, as we even now find its existence in several manuscripts. But it is not 
necessary to suppose this ; the Fathers, in quoting, make such transpositions 
with great freedom. The stress laid on the transposition in Supernatural Relig- 
ion is very extravagant. It did not affect the sense, but merely made more 
prominent the knowledge and the revelation of the Father by Christ. The 
importance of the change from the present tense to the past is also preposter- 
ously exaggerated. It merely expressed more distinctly what the present implied. 
Further, these variations admit of an easy explanation. In preaching Chris- 
tianity to unbelievers, special emphasis would be laid on the fact that Christ 
had come to give men a true knowledge of God, of God in his paternal char- 
acter. The transposition of the clauses in quoting this striking passage, which 
must have been often quoted, would thus be very natural ; and so would be the 
change from the present tense to the past. The Gnostics, moreover, regarding 
the God of the Old Testament as an inferior and imperfect being, maintained 
that the true God, the Supreme, had been wholly unknown to men before he 
was revealed by Christ. They would, therefore, naturally quote the passage in 
the same way; and the variation at an early period would become wide-spread. 
That Irenaeus should notice a difference between the form in which the Gnostics 
quoted the text and that which he found in his own copy of the Gospels is not 
strange ; but there is nothing in what he says which implies that it was anything 
more than a various reading or corruption of the text of Matthew or Luke ; he 
nowhere charges the Gnostics with taking it from Gospels peculiar to them- 
selves. It is their interpretation of the passage rather than their text which he 
combats. The change of order further occurs frequently in writers who are 
treating of the divinity of Christ, as Athanasius, Didymus, Epiphanius. Here 
the occasion seems to have been that the fact that Christ alone fully knew the 



214 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Father was regarded as proving his deity, and the transposition of the clauses 
gave special prominence to that fact! Another occasion was the circumstance 
that when the Father and the Son are mentioned together in the New Testament, 
the name of the Father commonly stands first ; and the transposition was the 
more natural in the present case, because, as Semisch remarks, the word 
" Father " immediately precedes. 

In this statement, I have only exhibited those variations in the quotation of 
this text by the Fathers which correspond with those of Justin. These give a 
very inadequate idea of the extraordinary variety of forms in which the passage 
appears. I will simply observe, by way of specimen, that, while Eusebius quotes 
the passage at least eleven times, none of his quotations verbally agree. (See 
Cont. Marcel, i. i, p. 6 a ; Eccl. Theol. i. 12, 15, 16 bis, 20, pp. 72°, 76% 77 d , 
78 a ,88 d ; Devi. Evang. iv. 3, v. 1, pp. 149°, 2i6 d ; Comm. in Ps. ex.; Eel. 
proph. i. T2 ; Hist. Eccl. i. 2. § 2.) The two quotations which he introduces from 
Marcellus [Eccl. Theol. i. 15 and 16) present a still different form. In three of 
Eusebius's quotations for el fir/ 6 Trar?}p he reads ei fii/ 6 fiovog yewr/oac avrbv izarr/p 
{Eccl. Theol. i. 12, p. 72°; Devi. Evang. iv. 3, p. 149° ; and Hist. Eccl. i. 2. § 2). 
If this were found in Justin Martyr, it would be insisted that it must have come 
from some apocryphal Gospel, and the triple recurrence would be thought to 
prove it.* The variations in Epiphanius, who also quotes the passage eleven 
times (not counting the transfers from the Ancoratus), are perhaps equally 
remarkable. Pseudo-C^ESARIUS quotes it thus {Dial. i. resp. 3) : Oi'delc yap 
016 e rbv Trarepa el prj 6 vlog, ovde rbv vlov tic kiriararai el pi) a rrari/p. But 
the false premises from which the author of Supernatural Religion reasons 
have been sufficiently illustrated. 

This Note is too long to allow the discussion of some points which need a 
fuller treatment. I will only call attention to the fact that in the list of passages 
in our Gospels which Irenaeus (i. 20. § 2) represents the Marcosians as pervert- 
ing, there is one which presents a difficulty, and which some have supposed to 
be taken from an apocryphal Gospel. As it stands, the text is corrupt, and the 
passage makes no sense. Mr. Norton in the first edition of his Genuineness of the 
Gospels (1837), vol. i. Addit. Notes,' p. ccxlii., has given a plausible conjectural 
emendation of the text in Irenaeus, which serves to clear up the difficulty. For 
the iroAAdnic eTcedvprioa of Irenaeus he would read -o'/lol ml erred'opr/cav, for Seiv, 
elvai (so the old Latin version), and for (ha rov hoc, 61a rov e povvroq. The 
passage then becomes a modification of Matt. xiii. 17. Dr. Westcott {Canon 
of the N. T, 4th ed^, p. 306) proposes erred vu7]cav for eizedvp^aa, without being 
aware that his conjecture had been anticipated. But that change alone does 
not restore sense to the passage. The masterly review of Credner's hypothesis 
that Justin's Memoirs were the so-called " Gospel according to Peter," which 
contains Mr. Norton's emendation to which I have referred, was not reprinted 
in the second edition of his work. It seemed to me, therefore, worth while to 
notice it here. 



•Compare Supernatural Religion, i. 341. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



215 



NOTE B. (See p. 141.) 

ON THE TITLE, "MEMOIRS BY the APOSTLES." 

In regard to the use of the article here, it may be well to notice the points 
made by Hilgenfeld, perhaps the ablest and the fairest of the German critics 
who regard some apocryphal Gospel or Gospels as the chief source of Justin's 
quotations. His book is certainly the most valuable which has appeared on 
that side of the question.* 

In the important passage {Dial. c. 103), in which Justin says, "In the 
Memoirs which I affirm to have been composed by the Apostles of Christ and 
their companions (a (py/Jt. I'tto tcjv cnroar6?Mv avrov teal tcjv EKEtvoig irnpaKoAovdr/- 
advTuv owTeraxdat), it is written that sweat, like drops of blood [or "clots," 
OpouJoi], flowed from him while he was praying" (comp. Luke xxii. 44), and 
which Semiscb very naturally compares, as regards its description of the 
Gospels, with a striking passage of Tertullian,t Hilgenfeld insists — 

(1) That the article denotes "the collective body" {die Gesammtheit) of the 
Apostles and their companions. 

(2) "The Memoirs by the Apostles" is the phrase generally used by Justin. 
This might indeed be justified by the fact that the Gospels of Mark and Luke 
were regarded as founded on the direct communications of Apostles or sanc- 
tioned by them ; but this, Hilgenfeld says, is giving up the sharp distinction 
between the Gospels as written two of them by Apostles and two by Apostolic 
men. 

(3) The fact that Justin appeals to the "Memoirs by the Apostles'''' for inci- 
dents, like the visit of the Magi, which are recorded by only one apostle, 
" shows clearly the utter indefmiteness of this form of expression." % " Mani- 
festly, that single passage, namely, the one quoted above {Dial. c. 103), "must 
be explained in accordance with Justin's general use of language." 

Let us examine these points. As to (1), the supposition that Justin con- 
ceived of his " Memoirs " as " composed " or " written " — these are the words 
he uses — by "the collective body" of the Apostles of Christ and "the col- 
lective body " of their companions is a simple absurdity. 

(2) and (3). For Justin's purpose, it was important, and it was sufficient, to 
represent the " Memoirs " to which he appealed as resting on the authority of 
the Apostles. But in one place he has described them more particularly; and 
it is simply reasonable to say that the more general expression should be 
interpreted in accordance with the precise description, and not, as Hilgenfeld 
strangely contends, the reverse. 



*See his Kr it isc he Untersuchungen uber die Evangelien Justin's, der clement inischen 
Homilien und Marc ion' s (Halle, 1850), p. 13 ff. 

^Adv. Marc. iv. 2 : Constituimus inprimis evangelicum instrumentum apostolos auctores 
habere. ... Si et. apostolicos, non tamen solos, sed cum apostolis et post apostolos. . . . Denique 
nobis fidem ex apostolis Ioannes et Matthseus insinuant, ex apostolicis Lucas et Marcus 
instaurant. 

Z Hilgenfeld also refers to Justin {Dial. c. 101, p. 328, comp. Apol. i. 38) for a passage relating 
to the mocking of Christ at the crucifixion, which Justin, referring to the " Memoirs," describes 
"in a form,'' as he conceives, "essentially differing from all our canonical Gospels." To me it 
appears that the agreement is essential, and the difference of slight importance and easily 
explained ; but to discuss the matter here would be out of place, and would carry us too far. 



216 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



(3) The fact that Justin appeals to the " Memoirs by the Apostles " for an 
incident which is related by only one Apostle is readily explained by the fact 
that he gives this title to the Gospels considered collectively, just as he once 
designates them as evayyi?ua^ "Gospels," and twice as to eba^ye/aov, "the 
Gospel." The usage of the Christian Fathers in quoting is entirely analogous. 
They constantly cite passages as contained " in the Gospels " which are found 
only in one Gospel, simply because " the Gospels " was a term used interchange- 
ably with "the Gospel," to denote the four Gospels conceived of as one book. 
For examples of this use of the plural, see the note to p. 141. To the instances 
there given, fifty or a hundred might easily be added. 

Hilgenfeld, : n support of his view of the article here, cites the language of 
Justin where, in speaking of the new birth, he says, "And the reason for this 
we have learned from the Apostles" {Apol. i. 61). Here it seems to me not 
improbable that Justin had in mind the language of Christ as recorded by the 
Apostles John and Matthew in John iii. 6, 7, and Matt, xviii. 3, 4. That he had 
110 particular Apostles or apostolic writings in view — that by "the Apostles" 
he meant vaguely "the collective body of the Apostles" does not appear likely. 
The statement must have been founded on something which he had read 
somewhere. 

NOTE C. (See p. 196.) 

JUSTIN MARTYR AND THE " GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS." 

After remarking that the " GoSpel according to the Hebrews " was " almost 
universally regarded in the first centuries as the Hebrew original of our canon- 
ical Gospel of St. Matthew," that Greek versions of it "must have existed at a 
very early date," and that "at various times and in different circles it took very 
different shapes," Lipsius observes : " The fragments preserved in the Greek 
by Epiphanius betray very clearly their dependence on our canonical Gospels. 
. . . The Aramaic fragments also contain much that can be explained and under- 
stood only on the hypothesis that it is a recasting of the canonical text. . . . 
The narrative of our Lord's baptism (Epiphan. Hcer. xxx. 13), with its threefold 
voice from heaven, is evidently a more recent combination of older texts, of 
which the first is found in the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke; the second in 
the text of the Cambridge Cod. Bezcv at St. Luke iii. 22, in Justin Martyr {Dial. 
c. Tryphon. 88, 103), and Clemens Alexandrinus {Pcedag. i. 6, p. 113, Potter); 
the third in our canonical Gospel of St. Matthew. And this very narrative may 
suffice to prove that the so-called ' Hebrew ' text preserved by St. Jerome is by 
no means preferable to that of our canonical Gospel of St. Matthew, and even 
less original than the Greek text quoted by Epiphanius." * " The attempt to 
prove that Justin Martyr and the Clementine Homilies had one extra-canonical 



* Smith and Wace's Diet, of Christian Biog., vol. ii. (1SS0), p. 710. Many illustrations are 
here given of the fact that most of the quotations which have come down to us from the " Gospel 
of the Hebrews" belong to a later period, and represent a later stage of theological develop- 
ment, than our canonical Gospels. Mangold agrees with Lipsius. See the note in his edition of 
Bleek's Einleitung in das N. T., 3 e Aufl. (1875), p. 132 f. Dr. E. A. Abbott, art. Gospels in 
the ninth ed. of the Encyclopedia Britannica (x. 81S, note), takes the same view. He finds no 
evidence that Justin Martyr made any use of the Gospel according to the Hebrews. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 217 



authority common to them both, either in the Gospel of the Hebrews or in the 
Gospel of St. Peter, . . . has altogether failed. It is only in the rarest cases that 
they literally agree in their deviations from the text of our Gospels ; they differ 
in their citations as much, for the most part, one from the other as they do from 
the text of the synoptical evangelists, even in such cases when one or the other 
repeatedly quotes the same passage, and each time in the same words. Only in 
very few cases is the derivation from the Gospel of the Hebrews probable, as in 
the saying concerning the new birth (Justin M. Apol. i. 61 ; Clem. Homilies, xi. 
26 ; Recogn. vi. 9) ; ... in most cases ... it is quite enough to assume that the 
quotations were made from memory, and so account for the involuntary con- 
fusion of evangelic texts." {Ibid. p. 712.) 

Mr. E. B. Nicholson, in his elaborate work on the Gospel according to the 
Hebrews (Lond. 1879), comes to the conclusion that "there are no proofs that 
Justin used the Gospel according to the Hebrews at all" (p. 135). He also 
observes, "There is no reason to suppose that the authorship of the Gospel 
according to the Hebrews was attributed to the Apostles generally in the 2d or 
even the 3d cent. Irenaeus calls it simply 'that Gospel which is according to 
Matthew "' (p. 134). 

Holtzmann in the eighth volume of Bunsen's Bibelwerk (1866) discusses at 
length the subject of apocryphal Gospels. He comes to the conclusion that 
the "Gospel of the Hebrews" or "of the Nazarenes" was an Aramaic redac- 
tion {Bearbeitiing) of our Matthew, executed in an exclusively Jewish-Christian 
spirit, making some use of Jewish-Christian traditions, but presupposing the 
Synoptic and the Pauline literature. It was probably made in Palestine for the 
Jewish-Christian churches some time in the second century (p. 547). The 
Gospel of the Ebionites, for our knowledge of which we have to depend almost 
wholly on Epiphanius, a very untrustworthy writer, Holtzmann regards as " a 
Greek recasting ( Ueberarbeitung) of the Synoptic Gospels, with peculiar Jewish- 
Christian traditions and theosophic additions " (p. 553). 

Professor Drummond, using Kirchhofer's Quellensanimlung, has compared 
the twenty-two fragments of the Gospel according to the Hebrews there col- 
lected (including those of the Gospel of the Ebionites) with Justin's citations 
from or references to the Gospels, of which he finds about one hundred and 
seventy. I give his result : — 

" With an apparent exception to be noticed presently, not one of the twenty- 
two quotations from the lost Gospel is found among these one hundred and 
seventy. But this is not all. While thirteen deal with matters not referred to 
in Justin, nine admit of comparison ; and in these nine instances not only does 
Justin omit everything that is characteristic of the Hebrew Gospel, but in 
some points he distinctly differs from it, and agrees with the canonical Gospels. 
There is an apparent exception. Justin quotes the voice from heaven at the 
baptism in this form, 'Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee.' 'This 
day have I begotten thee ' is also in the Ebionite Gospel ; * but there it is 
awkwardly appended to a second saying, thus : ' Thou art my beloved Son ; in 
thee was I well pleased ; and again, This day have I begotten thee ' ; — so that 
the passage is quite different from Justin's, and has the appearance of being a 
later patchwork. Justin's form of quotation is still the reading of the Codex 



* See Epiphanius, H<%r, xxx. 13 ; Nicholson, The Gospel according to the Hebrews, p. 40 
ft. — E. A, 

29 



218 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Bezae in Luke, and, according to Augustine, was found in good MSS., though 
it was said not to be in the older ones. (See Tischend. in loco.) * One other 
passage is appealed to. Justin says that, when Jesus went down upon the water, 
a fire was kindled in the Jordan, — rrvp avrjtyftri ev r<p 'lopdavrj. The Ebionite 
Gospel relates that, when Jesus came tip from the water, immediately a great 
light shone round the place, — ev&vg -irepte/M/btipe rbv totcov (bag jueya. This fact 
is, I believe, the main proof that Justin used the Gospel according to the 
Hebrews, and that we may therefore have recourse to it, whenever he differs 
verbally from the existing Gospels. Considering that the events recorded are 
not the same, that they are said to have happened at different times, and that 
the two quotations do not agree with one another in a single word, this argu- 
ment cannot be considered very convincing, even by those who do not require 
perfect verbal accuracy in order to identify a quotation. But, further, the 
author of the anonymous Liber de Rebaptismate says that this event was 
related in an heretical work entitled Pauli Praedicatio, and that it was not 
found in any Gospel : 'Item cum baptizaretur, ignem super aquam esse visum; 
quod in evangelio nullo est scriptum.' " (Routh, Rel. Sac. v. pp. 325, 326 [c. 
14, Routh; c. 17, Hartel.]) Of course the latter statement may refer only to 
the canonical Gospels, t To this it may be added that a comparison of the 
fuller collection of fragments of "the Gospel according to the Hebrews" given 
by Hilgenfeld or Nicholson (the latter makes out a list of thirty-three frag- 
ments) would be still less favorable to the supposition that Justin made use of 
this Gospel. 

In the quotations which I have given from these independent writers, I have 
not attempted to set forth in full their views of the relation of the original 
Hebrew Gospel to our Greek Matthew, still less my own ; but enough has been 
said to show how little evidence there is that the " Gospel of the Hebrews" 
in one form or another either constituted Justin's " Memoirs," or was the 
principal source from which he drew his knowledge of the life of Christ. 
While I find nothing like proof that Justin made use of any apocryphal Gospel, 
the question whether he may in a few instances have done so is wholly 
unimportant. Such a use would not in his case, any more than in that of the 
later Fathers, as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Jerome, imply that he placed 
such a work on a level with our four Gospels. 

The notion that Justin used mainly the " Gospel according to Peter," which 
is assumed, absolutely without evidence, to have been a form of the " Gospel 
according to the Hebrews," rests almost wholly on the hypothesis, for which 
there is also not a particle of evidence, that this Gospel was mainly used by the 



*It is the reading also (in Luke iii. 22) of the best MSS. of the old Latin version or versions, 
of Clement of Alexandria, Methodius, Lactantius, Juvencus, Hilary of Poitiers in several 
places, Hilary the deacon (if he is the author of Qucestioues Vet. et Nov. Test.), and Faustus the 
Manichsean ; and Augustine quotes it once without remark. It seems to be presupposed in the 
Apostolical Constitutions (ii. 32); see the note of Cotelier in loc. It is altogether probable 
therefore that Justin found it in his MS. of Luke. The words (from Ps. ii. 7) being repeatedly 
applied to Christ in the N.T. (Acts xiii. 33; Heb. i. 5; v. 5), the substitution might easily 
occur through confusion of memory, or from the words having been noted in the margin of MSS. 
— E. A. 

t Theol. Review, October, 1875, xii. 482 I, note. The Liber de Rebaptismataxs usually pub- 
lished with the works of Cyprian, 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 2ig 



author of the Clementine Homilies. The agreement between certain quotations 
of Justin and those found in the Clementine Homilies in their variations from 
the text of our Gospels is supposed to prove that Justin and Clement drew 
from a common source ; namely, this " Gospel according to Peter," from which 
they are then imagined to have derived the great body of their citations. The 
facts stated in the quotation I have given above from Lipsius, who has 
expressed himself none too strongly, are enough to show the baselessness of 
this hypothesis; but it may be well to say a few words about the alleged agree- 
ment in five quotations between Justin and the Clementines in their variations 
from the text of our Gospels. These are all that have been or can be adduced 
in argument with the least plausibility. The two most remarkable of them, 
namely, Matt. xi. 27 (par. with Luke x. 22) and John iii. 3-5, have already been 
fully discussed.* In two of the three remaining cases, an examination of the 
various readings in Tischendorf's last critical edition of the Greek Testament 
(1869-72), and of the parallels in the Christian Fathers cited by Semisch and 
others, will show at once the utter worthlessness of the argument, t 

The last example alone requires remark. This is Matt. xxv. 41, "Depart 
from me, accursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his 
angels." This is quoted by Justin as follows : " Go ye into the outer darkness, 
which the Father prepared for Satan and his angels." {Dial. c. 76.) The 
Clementine Homilies (xix. 2) agrees with Justin, except that it reads " devil " 
for " Satan." 

Let us examine the variations from the text of Matthew, and see whether 
they justify the conclusion that the quotations were taken from a different 
Gospel. 

The first is the substitution of vTzdyer:^ which I have rendered "Go ye," for 
Tcopeveade, translated in the common version "depart." The two words, how- 
ever, differ much less, as they are used in Greek, than go and depart in English. 
The common rendering of both is " go." We have here merely the substitu- 
tion of one synonymous word for another, which is very frequent in quotations 
from memory. Tischendorf cites for the reading VTrdyere here the Sinaitic MS. 
and Hippolytus (De Antichr. c. 65) ; so Origen on Rom. viii. 38 in Cramer's 
Catena (p. 156) referred to in the Addenda to Tregelles's Greek. Test. ; to which 
maybe added Didymus {Adv. Manich. c. 13, Migne xxxix. 1104), Asterius 
{Orat. ii. in Ps. v., Migne xl. 412), Theodoret {In Ps. lxi. 13, M. lxxx. 1336), 
and Basil of Seleucia {Orat. xl. § 2, M. lxxxv. 461). Chrysostom in quoting 
the passage substitutes aizEAdere for Tvopeveode eight times {Opp. i. 27 b ed. Montf. ; 
285°; v. 256°; xi. 20, c ; 67 4f; 6g^ a ; xii. 29i b ; 727^ ; and so Epiphanius once 
{Hcer. lxvi. 80, p. 700), and Pseudo-Csesarius {Dial. iii. resp. 140, Migne xxxviii. 
1061). In the Latin Fathers we find discedite, ite, abite, and recedite. 



* See, for the former, Note A ; for the latter, p. 147 ff . 

tThe two cases are (a) Matt. xix. 16-18 (par. Mark x. 17 ff. ; Luke xviii. 18 ff.) compared 
with Justin, Dial. c. 101, and Afiol. i. 16, and Clem. Horn, xviii. 1, 3 (comp. iii. 57 ; xvii. 4). 
Here Justin's two quotations differ widely from each other, and neither agrees closely with the 
Clementines, {b) Matt. v. 34, 37, compared with Justin, Apol. i. 16; Clem. Horn. iii. 55; xix. 2; 
also James v. 12, where see Tischendorf's note. Here the variation is natural, of slight impor- 
tance, and paralleled in Clement of Alexandria and Epiphanius. On (a) see Semisch, p. 371 ff. ; 
Hilgenfeld, p. 220 ff. ; Westcott, Canon, p. 153 f . ; on (<5) Semisch, p. 375 f. ; Hilgenfeld, p. 175 f. ; 
Westcott, p. 152 f. ; Sanday, p. 122 f. 



220 INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

The second variation consists in the omission of air kfiov^ " from me," and {ol) 
Karvpa/ievoi, " (ye) accursed." This is of no account whatever, being a natural 
abridgment of the quotation, and very common in the citations of the passage 
by the Fathers ; Chrysostom, for example, omits the " from me " fifteen times, 
the "accursed" thirteen times, and both together ten times {Opp. i. 103 d ; v. 
191°; 473 d ; vii. 296 s1 ; 57i d ; viii. 356 d ; ix. 679*; 709°; x. I38 b ). The omission 
is still more frequent in the very numerous quotations of Augustine. 

The third and most remarkable variation is the substitution of to gkotoq to 
e^uTepov, "the outer darkness," or "the darkness without," for to irvp to 
alavcov, " the eternal fire." The critical editors give no various reading here in 
addition to the quotations of Justin and the Clementines, except that of the 
cursive MS. No. 40 (collated by Wetstein), which has, as first written, to Trvp to 
k^oTepov, " the outer fire," for " the eternal fire." It has not been observed, I 
believe, that this singular reading appears in a quotation of the passage by 
Chrysostom {Ad Theodor. lapsum, i. 9), according to the text of Morel's edition, 
supported by at least two MSS. (See Montfaucon's note in his edition of 
Chrysost. Opp. i. 11.) This, as the more difficult reading, may be the true one, 
though Savile and Montfaucon adopt instead aiuviov, "eternal," on the authority 
of four MSS.* But it does not appear to have been noticed that Chrysostom 
in two quotations of this passage substitutes the "outer darkness" for "the 
eternal fire." So De Virg. c. 24, Opp. i. 285 (349)% a-eWeTe yap, ^a'tv, «tt' e/iov 
elg to onoToq to etjorepov to yToi/uao/uevov n. r. 'a. Again, De Pcenit. vii. 6, Opp. ii. 
339 (399) b > nopevecde, ol naTtjpa/Lievoi, elg to CKorog to etjarepov k. t. a. We find the 
same reading in Basil the Great, Horn, in Luc. xii. 18, Opp. ii. 50 (7o) d ; in 
Theodore of Mopsuestia in a Syriac translation {Fragmenta Syriaca, ed. 
E. Sachau, Lips. 1869, p. 12, or p. 19 of the Syriac), "discedite a me in tenebras 
exteriores qua paratae sunt diabolo ejusque angelis " ; in Theodoret {In Ps. 
lxi. 13, Migne Ixxx. 1336), who quotes the passage in connection with vv. 32-34 
as follows: "Go ye {vTrdyere) into the outer darkness, where is the loud crying 
and gnashing of teeth"; t in Basil of Seleucia substantially {Orat. xl. § 3, M. 
Ixxxv. 308), i"KayeTe elg to anoTog to e f w, to yToijuaojuevov k. t. a., and in 
"Simeon Cionita," i.e. Symeon Stylites the younger {Serm. xxi. c. 2, in Mai's 
Nova Patrum Biblioth, torn. viii. (187 1), pars iii. p. 104), "Depart, ye accursed, 
into the outer darkness; there shall be the wailing and gnashing of teeth." % 
Compare Sulpicius Severus, EpisL i. ad Sororem, c. 7 : " Ite in tenebras 
exteriores, ubi erit fletus et stridor dentium" (Migne xx. 227 a ). See also 
Antonius Magnus, Abbas, Epist. xx. (Migne, Patrol. Gr. xl. 1058), "Recedite 
a me, maledicti, in ignem aeternum, ubi est fletus et stridor dentium." 

The use of the expression "the outer darkness" in Matt. viii. 12, xxii. 13, 
and especially xxv. 30, in connection with " the wailing and gnashing of teeth," 
and the combination of the latter also with "the furnace of fire" in Matt. xiii. 
42, 50, would naturally lead to such a confusion and intermixture of different 
passages in quoting from memory, or quoting freely, as we see in these 



* Since the above was written, I have noticed this reading in Philippus Solitarius, Dioptra 
Rei Christiana;, iv. 20 (Migne, Patrol. Gr. cxxvii. 875, b c) : " Abite a me procul, longe, 
maledicti, in ignem exterior em, qui praeparatus est diabolo et angelis ejus." 

fThe last clause reads qtxov 6 (3pvyfibg xal 6 oAo?,vyjubg tuv oSovtuv, but the words 
Bpvyfiog and bAo'Avy/aoc seem to have been transposed through the mistake of a scribe. 

X Simeon Cionita uses the expression jo k^6)Tepov Trvp, " the outer fire/' Serm. xxi. c. 1. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 221 



examples. Semisch quotes a passage from Clement of Alexandria [Qui s dives, 
etc., c. 13, p. 942), in which Jesus is represented as threatening '" fire and the 
outer darkness " to those who should not feed the hungry, etc. Cyril of Alex- 
andria associates the two thus : " What darkness shall fall upon them . . . when 
he shall say, Depart from me, ye accursed, into the eternal fire" etc. {Horn. div. 
Opp. v. pars ii. b, p. 40S f.) The fire was conceived of as burning without 
light. In the case of Justin there was a particular reason for the confusion of 
the "fire" and the "outer darkness" from the fact that he had just before 
quoted Matt. viii. 12, as well as the fact that " the outer darkness " is mentioned 
likewise in the same chapter of Matthew (xxv. 30) from which his quotation is 
derived {Dial. c. 76). 

Justin's substitution of "Satan" for "devil" is obviously unimportant. It 
occurs in the Jerusalem Syriac and iEthiopic versions, and was natural in the 
dialogue with Trypho the Jew. 

The remaining coincidence between Justin and the Clementines in their 
variation from Matthew consists in the substitution of 6 rjroifmaev 6 iran'/p, 
"which the Father prepared" (comp. ver. 34), for to f/roijuag/xivov, "which is [or 
hath been] prepared." This is of no weight, as it is merely an early various 
reading which Justin doubtless found in his text of Matthew. It still appears, 
usually as " my Father " for " the Father," in important ancient authorities, as 
the Codex Beza (D), the valuable cursives 1. and 22., the principal MSS. of the 
Old Latin version or versions (second century), in IreN/EUS four or five times 
("pater," Ha>r. ii. 7. § 3; "pater meus," iii. 23. § 3; iv. 33. § 1 1 : 40. § 2 ; 
v. 27. § 1, alius.), Origen in an old Latin version four times {Opp. i. 87b, 
allusion; ii. 177*; 293 d ; iii. 885 e ), Cyprian three times, Juvencus, Hilary 
three times, Gaudentius once, Augustine, Leo Magnus, and the author of 
De Promissis, — for the references to these, see Sabatier; also in Philastrius 
{H(zr. 114), SULPICIUS Severus {Ep. ii. ad Sororem, c. 7, Migne xx. 231c), 
Fastidius {Be Vit. Chr. cc. 10, 13, M. 1. 393, 399), Evagrius presbyter {Con- 
sul^ etc. iii. ,9, M. xx. 1164), Salvian {Adv. Avar. ii. 11 ; x. 4; M. liii. 201, 251), 
and other Latin Fathers — but the reader shall be spared. — Clement of Alex- 
andria in an allusion to this passage {Cohort, c. 9, p. 69) has "which the Lord 
prepared"; Origen {Lat.) reads six times "which God prepared" {Opp. ii. i6i e ; 
346 a ; 416 1 '; 43i (l ; 466 b ; and iv. b. p. 48 a , ap. Pamphili Apol.) ; and we find the 
same reading in Tertullian, Gaudentius, . Jerome {In Isa. 1. 11), and Paulinus 
Nolanus. Alcimus Avitus has Dens Pater. — Hippolytus {De Antichr. c. 65) 
adds "which my Father prepared" to the ordinary text. 

It is clear, I think, from the facts which have been presented, that there is no 
ground for the conclusion that Justin has here quoted an apocryphal Gospel. 
His variations from the common text of Matthew are easily explained, and we 
find them all in the quotations of the later Christian Fathers. 

In the exhibition of the various readings of this passage, I have ventured to 
go a little beyond what was absolutely necessary for my immediate purpose, 
partly because the critical editions of the Greek Testament represent the 
patristic authorities so incompletely, but principally because it seemed desirable 
to expose' still more fully the false assumption of Supernahiral Religion and 
other writers in their reasoning about the quotations of Justin. 

But to return to our main topic. We have seen that there is no direct evi- 



222 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



dence of any weight that Justin used either the " Gospel according to the 
Hebrews " (so far as this was distinguished from the Gospel according to 
Matthew) or the " Gospel according to Peter." That he should have taken 
either of these as the source of his quotations, or that either of these constituted 
the " Memoirs " read generally in public worship in the Christian churches of 
his time, is in the highest degree improbable. The " Gospel according to the 
Hebrews " was the Gospel exclusively used by the Ebionites or Jewish Chris- 
tians; and neither Justin nor the majority of Christians in his time were 
Ebionites. The " Gospel according to Peter " favored the opinions of the 
Docetae ; but neither Justin nor the generality of Christians were Docetists. 
Still less can be said in behalf of the hypothesis that any other apocryphal 
" Gospel " of which we know anything constituted the " Memoirs " which he 
cites, if they were one book, or was included among them, if they were several. 
We must, then, either admit that Justin's " Memoirs " were our four Gospels, 
a supposition which, I believe, fully explains all the phenomena, or resort to 
Thoma's hypothesis of an " X-Gospel," i.e., a Gospel of which we know 
nothing. The only conditions which this " X-Gospel " will then have to fulfil 
will be : It must have contained an account of the life and teaching of Christ 
which Justin and the Christians of his time believed to have been "composed 
by the Apostles and their companions " ; it must have been received accord- 
ingly as a sacred book, of the highest authority, read in churches on the Lord's 
day with the writings of the Old Testament prophets ; and, almost immediately 
after he wrote, it must have mysteriously disappeared and fallen into oblivion, 
leaving no trace behind.* 



* Compare Norton, Genuineness of the Gospels, ist eel. (1S37), vol. i. pp. 225-230; 2d ed., 
i. 231 f. 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN : 



THE HISTORIC FORCES THAT WORKED TOGETHER TOWARD 
ITS COMPOSITION, AXD THE NATURE OF THE CONCEP- 
TIOXS IT EMBODIES. 

By Rev. FRANCIS TIFFANY. 

Brethren of the Ministers' Institute, — 

German thought has familiarized us all, even to weariness, 
with discussions as to the characteristics that separate 
between subjective and objective, idealistic and realistic, 
writers. Enough, that the moment we turn, of our own 
native prompting, from a poet like Shakspere to one like 
Milton, we are struck with an inherent difference in the 
habitual action of their minds. We take up Shakspere's 
Macbeth or Coriolanus. In either case, a distinct, concretely 
built individual confronts us. Ambition or patrician pride 
may be the dominant passion of his being. Still he em- 
braces a thousand-fold more than this ; and the catastrophe 
ambition or pride ultimately precipitates takes on a genuine 
human shape through the co-working of strictly individual 
factors of his nature, — for example, a sensitive conscience or 
an overweening love for a mother. Turn we now to a dra- 
matic poem of Milton, — we will say, The Masque of Comus. 
It is very beautiful. It lifts us at once into a region of ideal 
delight. But, if we ask what are the salient characteristics 
of the dramatis petsonae, we shall have to answer at once 
that the first brother is simply incarnate despondency, and 
the second incarnate hope, that the sister is ideal chastity, 
and Comus and his rout embodied sensuality. No concretely 

30 



224 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



human blood, nerve, variety, mystery of complication, is there 
in any of them. Still they charm, inspire, purify us ; and we 
feel that, airy and transfigured as are the shapes with which 
we have been conversing, they are none the less the palpable 
powers that availed to fashion so robust a character as that 
of Milton himself. 

Now, it may easily happen that any given age shall more 
readily appreciate the one class of such works than the other. 
But it must resolutely be insisted on at the outset that the 
very highest types of genius the world has been dowered 
with have illustrated the splendor of each of them. And no 
mind can think to aspire to comprehensiveness of taste and 
judgment that does not at least make the attempt to feel at 
home in both. Very difficult, for example, may it be for men 
of our prosaic and literal temperament to comprehend the 
mental process through which a Dante comes at last to kneel 
in rapt and breathless adoration before the transfiguration of 
the Florentine girl Beatrice into incarnate manifestation of 
Celestial Wisdom, — a process rapidly running through the 
same course in a single mind that in several generations 
transforms the Galilean peasant woman Mary into the Queen 
of Heaven and the Mother of God. Still Dante does spon- 
taneously rise into this supernatural sphere, does absolutely 
fuse the two contraries into one glorified image, — ay, and 
feel that from communion with its eternal reality he draws 
redemption from evil, and peace past understanding. And 
yet, without some conception of such imaginative processes, 
we shall forever be ruled out from the possibility of compre- 
hending the genesis of the great theologic conceptions that 
have dominated the world. 

Permit me here a personal word. Already you may have 
begun to think, and for some time to come may feel still 
more so disposed, that I am wandering from my immediate 
subject. In the end, I trust you will find I have been steadily 
working my way into its heart. 

Wide-spreading moral and religious movements always 
emanate from exceptional individuals, who embody and con- 
centrate in themselves the elemental yearnings and passions 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHX. 



225 



of whole ages and races. They are epoch-making men, be- 
cause embracing within themselves vast epochs. In time, 
the portrayal of the characters of these founders becomes a 
necessity, a thing the world will have. Then forthwith does 
the principle on which we have been dwelling begin to assert 
its sway. No matter whether direct eye-witnesses or second- 
hand gatherers up of traditions attempt this portraiture, the 
fundamental difference in men as to their way of looking at 
things must and will come out. The Socrates of Xenoohon 
is the record of what an observant, objective man, with little 
wealth of mind of his own to bewilder him, sees in a remark- 
able external character. The Socrates of Plato, on the other 
hand, is the precipitation of the richly-freighted mind of 
Plato himself on to certain characteristics of one whose 
native originality has stirred him to endless reflections, — re- 
flections that have carried him whole worlds away from their 
simple provocative and starting point, while still in memory 
and gratitude indissolubly fused with it. 

On opening the New Testament and comparing the im- 
pression produced by the Gospel of Matthew or Mark with 
that by the Gospel of John, the observant eye is at once 
struck with as salient a contrast as that already indicated on 
turning from the Macbeth or Othello of Shakspere to the 
Comus of Milton or to Spenser's Faerie Queene. Spite of a 
large amount of legendary accretion, the writer of Mat- 
thew evidently draws from the first-hand sketches of an ob- 
server with an open, out-of-doors, breezy eye. We see flesh- 
and-blood men and women, who can taunt and scowl and 
elbow for place, who are fairly bristling with bigotry and 
selfishness, or tearfully yearning for solace and sympathy. 
Turn to a figure like that of John the Baptist. Outside and 
inside, there is no mistaking the hair-clothed, fiercely ascetic 
son of the desert. Turn again to the delineation of the 
virulent enemies alike of John and Jesus. What missiles, 
that they mean shall draw blood, do these enemies fling, 
the one set against John as " possessed of the devil," the 
other against Jesus as a "glutton and a wine-bibber"! 
We fairly feel with what venomous emphasis the accent 



226 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



is laid on the ''bibber," and that the epithet actually tastes 
good in the mouth. And so, irresistibly, are we of to-day 
carried back a few years to flesh-and-blood memories of like 
venomous outbreaks of temper, in typical conservatives 
furiously denouncing Mr. Garrison as a "crazy fanatic," and 
typical total-abstinence men pouring contempt on the more 
genial Mr. Emerson as a "rummy." In fact, we contract 
the most delightsome sense of home-feeling, as though Jeru- 
salem • were, after all, but a sort of suburb of Boston, as 
we encounter precisely the same passions at work, and 
with the same exquisite command of the King's English or 
the King's Aramaic. 

Turn we now, for contrast, to the delineation John's 
Gospel gives of the Baptist. Do we encounter the same 
rough-hewn, fiercely ascetic character ? No, but a meta- 
physician, at home in the technical subtleties of the school 
of Alexandria, a devout Catholic adoring the .sacrificial 
Lamb of God. The Baptist has become cosmopolitan. He 
knows all about the pre-existent, divinely emanating Logos : 
he does not know, even by sight, his flesh-and-blood cousin. I 
choose this as a test instance of the change that has come over 
the objects of our study. Surely one would have pronounced 
the stern Semitic hermit as intractable a subject for such a 
transformation ; as though we had encountered him clothed 
in purple and in fine linen, perfumed and supple-kneed at 
the court of Herod. The powerful flux of an idea capable 
of melting down the most refractory individualities into a 
common fluid is evidently a work here. An interest and a 
faith in an idea is ' here, manifestly so powerful as to excrete 
and throw off all that does not fall into line with it. A com- 
munity of readers is implied, to whom it would seem nothing 
in the least strange, something on the contrary to be taken 
as a matter of course, that John the Baptist should have been 
a mystic adorer of the incarnate Logos. And this is an im- 
mense implication. It is a crucial instance of the real phe- 
nomenon to account for in all considerations of the Fourth 
Gospel. In comparison with this, ability or inability to name 
the actual author of the work is of the smallest possible 
account. 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



22/ 



Only in comparatively recent times has it come about 
that criticism has been able to cope effectually with this 
problem. And this for two reasons : First, the growth of 
mental freedom. For centuries, a paralysis lay on the hu- 
man mind, under which it dared neither to think nor feel 
naturally nor humanly on a vast range of subjects. Second, 
the fructifying principle had not yet been discovered, through 
which alone investigation could be profitably pursued. That 
fructifying principle first came into action through the mod- 
ern perception that every work of literature, every biog- 
raphy, every doctrine, is in reality a monument of the age 
that gave it birth. A profound sense of the infinite number 
of elements involved in the structure of every temple, poem, 
treatise, together with a clear recognition of the co-working 
of vast issues of race, climate, conquest, of mingling and in- 
termingling religions and philosophies toward the production 
of every such monument, — these implications have, in our 
age, come to be regarded as the indispensable outfit of every 
scholar worthy of the name. 

Now, for a long, long time, the writings of the New Testa- 
ment stood out as isolated phenomena. No prolific soil of 
human nature in which they grew was adequately realized. 
The men and women of the time were dogmatic and ec- 
clesiastical phantoms. Of the blood, passion, madness that 
reigned ; of the ferment of wild imaginations that was seeth- 
ing in the masses ; of the lone and fervid vigils of thinkers 
wrestling with the life-questions involved ; of the fierce the- 
ological and philosophical parties into which men were 
divided ; of the desperate struggles of those whose power, 
position, even bread, were bound up with the questions in 
debate ; of the yearnings, prayers, despair of the miserable, 
whose fate hung on the issue, — of all this, how little was 
seen to be the very life-blood and arterial circulation of the 
special literary product that, at the best, was of such age but 
the dim and pale representation ! Biblical history was sacred 
history. So even was later Church history that flowed out 
of it. But how terribly profane such sacred history might 
be, few had the hardihood to face, till the habit gained ground 



228 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



of rationally interpreting the past by the present, human 
nature in a primate of Alexandria by human nature in a pri- 
mate of English Canterbury, the gathering of the bishops, 
presbyters, and monks in a Council of Nicaea or Ephesus by 
the gathering of the political clans in a Tammany Hall. 
Then first were men in position to see how in this last in- 
stance, for example, precisely the same tactics of packing the 
primaries, distributing the offices (post-offices or bishoprics) 
where they would " do most good," howling clown obnoxious 
speakers, were in as full vogue and cry in Nicaea in 325 as 
in New York in 1879; av > an ^ how indubitably, spite of his 
gleaming mitre, flowing robes, and patriarchal beard, so many 
a bishop was underneath but a most superficially converted 
Ben Butler. 

Now, among the realities that have been brought out in 
vivid light in applying this method to New Testament criti- 
cism, two have become especially prominent : first, a more 
vital conception of the seething and ferment that were going 
on at the beginning of our era in Palestine, the birthplace of 
Christianity ; second, of the equally intense, though widely 
different seething and ferment that were going on in the 
world outside of Palestine, and into whose vortex Chris- 
tianity was speedily to be drawn and set whirling. And so, 
of the two elemental forces that were to combine in the one 
common flood of what afterwards flowed on as the great 
Christian Church, modern scholars are beginning to get as 
clear conceptions as the geologists are getting of that great 
continental river that, born of the confluence of the Missouri 
and the Mississippi, derives from each distinct coloring 
matter and fertilizing powers, which tell all the way down to 
the Gulf, in the nature of every reflection that gleams from 
its surface and of every harvest that waves on its banks. 

First, of the seething and ferment in Palestine. Old 
ideas and faiths had been ruthlessly broken up. All that 
seemed most reliable and immutable tottered and reeled 
before the dizzy sense. The devoted were distracted about 
Jehovah and his ways. They were yearning for something 
that would give a sense of political, moral, spiritual unity to 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



229 



their minds, that would bring some basis of reconciliation 
and harmony into the bewildering distraction that reigned. 
In different ways were they seeking it: the Pharisees, — 
that, in the main, so noble and patriotic party, — in one more 
frantic rally around the ceremonial law, in an obedience to it 
so unflinching and microscopic that Jehovah must perforce 
come to the rescue ; the Essenes, in a despair alike of pol- 
itics and sacerdotalism, in closer brotherhood and com- 
munity of love. Life and death problems were these men 
trying to work out, and strain and agony were their accompa- 
niments. Now, into the stress of this tragic turmoil, the 
life, character, and vision of Jesus brought to the followers 
he gathered about him the so pathetically yearned-for sense 
of spiritual harmony and reconciliation. In ideal, at least, 
they were the community of the loving ones, children of the 
Infinite Compassion, sharers and consolers of one another's 
tribulations, rapt adorers of the beatific vision of the king- 
dom of heaven, first-fruits of the new realm of beatitude 
speedily to come in the fulness of glory, in which the old 
order should be reversed, the greatest of all would be the 
consecrated servant of all, and there should be " no more 
death, neither sorrow nor crying." If we would think of 
this at all, let us try to think of it adequately. It was the 
concentration, in an outburst of ecstatic faith and in a vision 
that annihilated the barriers of space and time, of that which, 
in one shape or other, is the yearning and too often heart- 
break of every man and woman, through the ages, who has 
tears for human misery, who feels how the whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth in pain, who in prophetic vision of 
the heart shares hours of rapture in which he forecasts some 
glorified image of a New Jerusalem descending out of the 
heavens. I repeat it then : would we compass the problem 
before us, let us not think to leave out this Palestinian 
factor, but realize to ourselves all the passion and transport 
with which (under forms however crude and material) the 
new faith and expectation glowed in the hearts that shared 
it, realize to ourselves the yearning and heart-sickness with 
which something kindred to this was sighed for in every land 
under the sun to which its heralds should go forth. 



230 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Turn we now to the Jews outside of Palestine, as, dis- 
persed through the great cities, Western and Eastern, of 
the Roman Empire, and brought into vital contact with the 
most varied systems of subtle thought and fervid imagination, 
— Syrian, Chaldean, Egyptian, Greek, — they found them- 
selves stirred to the depths in another way. And here let 
us begin by giving the Hebrew the credit of at least a trace 
of ordinary human nature. The time has come for abandon- 
ing the old stock-conception of the Jew as an intractable 
type of intellect and character, remaining ever the same 
under all possible combinations of circumstances, — a sort of 
human thermometer, its mercury plugged, say at fifty de- 
grees, and never indicating, by a rise or fall of a hair's 
breadth, whether the surrounding atmosphere is palpitating 
with the heat of one hundred and twenty degrees or is 
frigid with the cold of the arctic circle. All which is about 
as reasonable as the Middle-Age induction that a Jew is natu- 
rally and invincibly an unclean creature, because, if barbarity 
enough can be concentrated on him to keep him shut up, 
with insufficient water, in a filthy ghetto for centuries, the 
logical results of the law of the cohesion of particles will 
show themselves ; while, as an offset to all this, one has but 
to throw a glance at the customs of the Essenes in their 
own land to see that the devout and loving brethren of the 
community must have lived in a sort of perpetual water-cure 
run mad. 

No : intellectually and speculatively, these Jews of the 
dispersion were in a ferment as marked as that which, on 
political and religious issues, characterized their Palestinian 
brethren. Contact with endless varieties of Oriental Gnos- 
tic and Occidental Greek theories and systems had aroused 
them to a hundred questions of deep thought and intense 
imaginative brooding, and set them all adrift from their 
original moorings. Thoroughly wrought up had they be- 
come over foundation questions about the origin of things, 
the inherent depravity of matter, the source and nature of 
the good principle and the bad principle in the world. In 
the picturesque expression of the Greeks, we read how those 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



who were tormented with the poetic frenzy were character- 
ized as "stung by the gad-fly." Ah! there is a gad-fly of 
metaphysics, and of speculation on the abysses of being, 
that drives yet more wildly about the mind, for the first 
time goaded out of the tranquil pasture-lands of traditional 
faith, by its sharp and stinging puncture. Painfully and in- 
evitably, these keenly stimulated intellects found themselves 
in a most perplexing "straight betwixt two." Philosophize 
they must, retain their reverence for their own sacred books 
and traditions they must. And here were two intensely 
vital factors in mortal deadlock, — two factors, mark you, 
that have always played an enormous part in human his- 
tory, — ay, and are playing it to-day in the breast of every 
thoughtful man and sensitive woman here present ; two 
factors, finally, that do not stand for a mere abstract con- 
flict between abstract ideas, but for a flesh-and-blood, intel- 
lectual, and emotional wrestle between the dearest sanctities 
of the heart and the most imperative necessities of the head. 

Of course this vital issue was settled, reconciliation and 
harmony were reached, freedom and wings alike for emotion 
and thought were attained, in the way in which the like 
issues always are settled, in such great world-processes ; 
namely, by the hearty reception of a principle that seemed to 
do full justice to each irresistible desire. The method of the 
allegorical interpretation of the sacred books came into rapid 
vogue, and exerted limitless fascination over the mind. Do 
not let us too contemptuously dismiss this so universal prin- 
ciple, the anodyne and chloroform through which humanity 
has been lulled into pleasing dreams, or outright insensi- 
bility to cruel surgical operations that were actually cutting 
into the very nerves and dismembering the limbs of the 
most venerated shapes of faith. Allegory enjoys, by its 
very nature, the inestimable advantage that there are no 
limits to it anywhere in time or space, that there is no con- 
ceivable thing an ingenious mind — like that of Swedenborg, 
to take a modern instance — cannot find hidden, as interior 
or spiritual sense, in the most crude or material outer bark 
and rind. Ay, and the best of all is that such mind can 

31 



232 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



honestly find it there, can believe, without a scruple, that it 
is there, if he but start with an invincible, reverential faith 
that his sacred Book, being from God, must inevitably 
embody all the depths of Godhead. And this was precisely 
what was going on, and upon an enormous scale most not- 
ably in Alexandria, at the very time that Jesus was estab- 
lishing a sense of moral and spiritual unity and reconciliation 
in Judea. 

Pause to glance a moment at the work this struggle after 
intellectual harmony was, in the very age of Jesus, accom- 
plishing under Philo, a great and individual leader indeed, 
but only a type of countless others who were absorbed in 
the self-same task. 

To what point has the metaphysical passion of Philo 
brought him ? To this : that he is so enraptured with Greek 
and Gnostic speculation, sees in it such a noble exercise of 
the intellect, such light cast upon the problems of this and 
all other worlds, that he feels it must be dear to the very 
heart of God himself, must be prefigured and prophesied in 
the revelation God has made to his chosen ones. So enor- 
mous, through this faith, has become the subjective ele- 
ment in his own mind, that the most sharply defined and 
materially solid of historical objects are dissolved into "such 
stuff as dreams are made of," and float, as the arid sands of 
the Sahara desert so oft-times do, in a mirage of lakes and 
groves. The rugged people Israel have become idealized 
into the symbol of the soul ; Egypt is the dark imprisoning 
body ; Canaan is beatitude ; the desert, the deliverance of 
the soul through stern asceticism. Again and inevitably, 
the question presses, What power have individual characters 
and outward events, however strongly marked, to stand out 
against the flux and solvent of such absolute possession of 
the idea ? Already have we spoken of the transfiguration 
of the rugged Baptist John into the adherent of an alien 
metaphysical system. See now how Philo deals with Abra- 
ham, and then let us bluntly ask ourselves whether histori- 
cally, in either case alike, we are not looking on at phenom- 
ena in which the same essential principle is at an identical 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



233 



kind of work. Here again in Abraham a type of character 
confronts us we should a priori pronounce impossible to 
evaporate into mere abstractions, — the princely sheik of the 
desert with his aged wife Sarah and her bond-maiden Hagar. 
But they reckon ill, who leave allegory out. Lo ! Abraham, 
to suit the temper of the times ! He has become translated 
into the abstract spirit of consecration and sacrifice ; while 
Hagar is mundane philosophy, and Sarah divine wisdom. 
Why is Hagar the slave of Sarah ? Why, but to body forth 
that profane wisdom ought ever to be subjected to the truth 
that comes from on high ? Long does Abraham cohabit with 
Sarah without posterity. Why, again, but to prefigure to 
the ages that the cultivation of divine wisdom alone is not 
sufficient to produce fruit ? Shall Abraham obtain a son ? 
Then must it be that, with the full consent of Sarah (who is 
divine wisdom), he unite himself with Hagar; that is, culti- 
vate profane science. Thus is the end of the ages accom- 
plished. Thanks to this alliance of human science and 
divine wisdom. Abraham is ultimately empowered to render 
even Sarah fruitful ; that is, to develop all there is of grand 
and productive in eternal truth. 

Now this may seem to us allegorizing with a vengeance. 
It certainly was. But what I want to fix attention on is 
that it was a process going forward upon an enormous scale 
among the Jews of the dispersion, forming a wide-spread 
habit of regarding outer fact as mere picturesque clothing 
of inner truth. More than all, especially note this : it was 
a process that was bringing multitudes of Greek-and-Gnostic- 
tinctured pagans to see that they could stand on common 
ground with these Jews, and freely and hospitably sympa- 
thize in ideas with them. The most sublimated Platonist 
would feel all his prejudices against a rude Abraham of the 
desert irresistibly melting away, as he found him capable of 
going through with such a transcendental metaphysical feat 
as that on which we have just been dwelling. And yet these 
things we smile at were dead earnest to those engaged in 
them. Perhaps they illustrate what is often called "the 
irony of history." And yet there is no cruel irony in it. 



234 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS, 



The bringing the varied members of our one-sided, wrong- 
headed, inveterately prejudiced race together, so that they 
can at least exchange ideas and learn to respect the deepest 
and noblest elements in one another's creeds, is in reality a 
sublime achievement. How many a Greek, versed in sub- 
tlest intellectual speculation as to the unity and ideal root of 
the cosmos, learned to feel an unknown thrill as he was 
brought into contact with the Holy God of Israel, "the 
power that makes for righteousness" ! How many a votary 
of some mystic Syrian or Chaldsean system, with its awful 
sense of the mystery of Elemental Evil, was awakened to 
intenser yearning after redemption and to new faith in its 
possibility, as he was awed and uplifted by the attributes 
of this self-same Holy God ! And, in rich return, how did 
many a Jew behold the portals flung wide into a new world 
of wonder and delight, as the life of reason awoke within 
him, and he felt himself borne on a mighty tide out into the 
ocean of infinity and eternity that is the characteristic of 
Greek, or, wider yet, of Aryan thought ! 

Yes, Philo : as Jacob and Esau contended in the womb of 
Rebekah, so did two mighty races contend in your breast. 
Only on a broader scale and in a more speculative spirit, 
were you carrying out the same great impulse that the more 
directly practical emergencies of life were forcing on the 
minds of others. Everywhere was the pounding of the 
great world-ocean breaking down the barriers of nationality 
and exclusion. Even in Judaea itself, the disposition steadily 
gathered head to let in on easy terms different orders of the 
heathen as proselytes of the gate, and to abrogate on their 
behalf many a cumbersome restriction, still insisted on for 
the Jewish-born. The schoolmaster of the Law was abroad, 
and on a scale we are but just beginning to apprehend. And 
so, in the alacrity with which, for example, a trained theolo- 
gian like Paul proved ready, when his day came, to level the 
last remaining frontier fortresses, and stand with the world 
at large on the ground of a common spiritual country, we 
see but a prophetic and joyous leap into a mighty stream of 
tendency, and not a feat of mere individual initiation. 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



235 



Time will not serve to enter into all the intricacies of the 
peculiar theologies that were shaping themselves through 
this fusion of Egyptian, Persian, Chaldsean, Greek, Hebrew 
ideas. Their main, and most characteristic features were 
briefly these : First, a profound sense of the abyss and un- 
knowableness of ultimate Godhead, a sensitive shrinking 
from the crude and passionate characteristics with which it 
had so often been set forth in literal scripture. And with 
this allied itself a profound emotional protest. The aspects 
of the material world had administered to the mind an intel- 
lectual and moral shock. Men could not see in this sensual, 
bestial world the first-hand work of a wise and beneficent 
Deity. Largely did it impress them as elemental disorder 
and chaos, hateful in its workings alike to reason, to the tor- 
tured heart, to the outraged moral being, — an abyss of evil 
to be delivered from. Creation, such a realm could not be 
held, of the one pure, immutable, eternal God. And yet God 
is and was and ever shall be. For evermore active cause, 
his being must essentially be going forth in sublime creative 
process. But it was in the evolution of a spiritual, supersen- 
suous world in his own image, a world in which, unhampered 
by bondage to materiality, the divine ideas have free play, 
run, and are glorified. In absolute riot of imagination, these 
divine ideas are conceived in endlessly varied forms, — as 
pure abstractions, as potent, shaping forces, as angels and 
hierarchies of angels, grading up and up till well-nigh in- 
distinguishable in power and attribute from Deity itself, 
grading down, as farther from central Godhead, till merged 
in the king of evil or in essentially accursed matter. Thus 
are these two worlds, the free and spiritual, the bound 
and fallen. They are set over the one against the other. 
And yet the light of the higher penetrates in gleams the 
darkness of the lower. From generation to generation, this 
light is manifested in the chosen ones of earth, and draws 
by pure affinity the kindred-minded. But, in union alone 
with this higher and spiritual world lies man's redemption 
from the lower ; and such redemption must be mediated for 
him through the indwelling of the powers of the celestial 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



realm. Of these, the highest, the primal, the soul in the 
absolute image of the Father is the Logos, or Creative 
Reason. No divine attributes but are practically accorded 
him in the adoring tributes paid by a Philo to his grace and 
power. He is " Before All Things," " First-begotten Son of 
God," "Image of God," " Creator of the Worlds," " Light," 
"Mediator," ''Intercessor." But here Philo stopped. His 
Semitic instinct would have shrunk, startled back at the 
thought of the outright incarnation of the Logos. 

Now, in all this, it is not in the least a question of what 
we individually may think about the worth of such theolo- 
gies or of such a solution of the earth-mystery. What we 
need to penetrate ourselves with is the historical fact that 
the minds of masses of men in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor — 
the vast realms into which the Palestinian stream was soon 
to plunge — were absolutely steeped in conceptions kindred 
to these. The name of such theories and fully wrought-out 
systems was simply legion. Nor do we form an adequate 
idea of them, if we regard them as mere philosophies. Phi- 
losophy is a cold word. They were also, with thousands, 
faiths, — faiths with all the blood and fire in them needful to 
kindle the wildest flames of fanaticism and to raise up 
prophets and prophetesses inspired with more than Bacchic 
fury. The most limited knowledge of Church history ap- 
prises us of the reality of the passion with which such 
systems were embraced, the austerity of the asceticism they 
nerved men to, the eager thirst for martyrdom they inspired. 
In the tremendous dualism of such conceptions lay endless 
magazines, alike of terror and of ecstasy, as the fervid imagi- 
nation of Oriental races seized upon their data. Emanation, 
Logos, Demiurge, essential evil of matter, elemental wrestle 
of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil, — these were as much 
reality to the high-wrought imagination of those ages as are 
to us food and poison, sunshine and mildew, invigorating 
mountain-air and pestilential breath of yellow fever. 

Surely, no man can share a vivid conception of the way 
in which the interests and passions of masses of men act 
and react upon one another, and still continue to dream 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



237 



that the marvellous movement that was about to start out 
from Palestine could maintain itself in its original shape, 
when once it had plunged into so alien a world as this. As 
well expect a mountain stream (pure, though it be, as crystal) 
to preserve itself the same in its onward course, where 
one tributary pours in brown with wood-stain and another 
red from clay-bottoms. What vast masses of the men and 
women to whom Christianity was now to make its appeal, 
were yearning after, was a sense of spiritual unity with 
that celestial realm, the vision of whose glory lay so radiant 
before their imaginations. It was after redemption from 
that lower world, whose fatal and essential evil they recog- 
nized with such shudder of sense and spirit. To them was 
there but one possibility of such redemption. It lay in 
living unity with the mystic, universal, all-penetrating spirit- 
ual image of God, call him Logos, call him any kindred 
name. For to them evil was not simply this man's sin or 
that man's sin.: it was elemental. Good, to triumph over it, 
must be likewise elemental. In comparison with the tre- 
mendous Ormuzd and Ahriman conflict between the great 
powers that were to decide the issue, individual personality 
sank into nothingness. The question of questions was, 
"Under whose banner?" And so inevitably, irresistibly, 
the Jesus who was to get any lasting hold on their minds 
and sway them as masses must become revealed to them as 
lord and ruler of this supersensuous world, must come trail- 
ing in clouds of glory every attribute of well-nigh essential 
Deity, must become identified with the Logos, Only-begot- 
ten, Mediator, Image of God, Creator of the Worlds, waging 
eternal warfare with the children of Darkness and of Satan. 

I repeat it : as well think to look through a window of 
red glass and not see the landscape all on fire, or through a 
window of blue glass and not see it white and drear with 
snow, as to look through the medium of these mystic, fer- 
vid, appalling, and enrapturing preconceptions, and dream 
that they will not project themselves as essential part of 
the object before the sight. 

The Palestinian movement did go forth into vast regions 



2 3 8 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



steeped and -saturated with these cosmic and theologic con- 
ceptions. And now the simple question arises : " In point 
of fact, did these conceptions modify or largely transform 
the image entertained of the character and nature of Jesus 
himself, and of the doctrines he taught to the world ? Does 
any record exist that bears attestation of such change, and, 
if so, how shall we recognize the tide-marks of such change ? 
Have we any sound, common-sense principles to go on in 
insisting on these tide-marks as conclusive ? " 

Yes : in the Gospel of John we have just such a document ; 
and, in studying it, we need only to apply a common-sense 
principle we are relying on every day and every hour. 
When any one of us reads a book that is continually bring- 
ing in such a phrase as "the categorical imperative," we 
say, "Aha! there's Kant ! " when such another as "the Will 
to Live," "Aha! there is Schopenhauer or Hartmann!" 
when still another like "the Instability of the Homoge- 
neous!" "Aha! there's Herbert Spencer!" And, if such 
kinds of phraseology and all the implications they carry 
with them stamp the whole character of the book, then do 
we without hesitation assert, " Here is precisely the same 
kind of circumstantial evidence which, to put it plainly, con- 
vinces us that the man we meet on the road with his hat 
and coat all white with meal came out of a grist-mill, or with 
his face and hands all black with coal-dust came out of a 
coal-yard." 

Open the Gospel of John. At the first stroke, we find 
ourselves off the solid ground of Judaea and in another realm. 
Following the line of the clear analysis of Professor Schol- 
ten, we note, first, that God is no longer characterized by 
mere attributes. He is substance, essential Spirit, Life, 
Light, Love, and that not through his relation to the world, 
but before the world, and in and of himself. But this does 
not complete his idea. Is God Thought alone, or is he more- 
over that which is his thought ? He is this also. His own 
essence enters into what is objectified as thought, lives, 
moves, has its being in it. Thus, originally in God, as con- 
tent of the divine thinking, the Logos, or Word, is, ideally 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



239 



considered, eternally immanent in God ; and this, too, before 
all worlds. Not alone immanent, however : the Logos goes 
forth a concrete divine substance, sharing in what God is in 
essence, and so image of God. He, like God, is Light and 
Life. By him are all things made, not indeed the outright 
substance of matter or the inherent evil in man, — these 
indeed have another author, as we shall see farther on, — 
but such order as marks the imperfect cosmos, and such 
light as shines in men. And so the world has two con- 
trasting sides. As born of the Logos, it partakes of God ; 
as related to the material and sensuous, it is intractable to 
or at enmity with God. There are two kinds of men : the 
one born of the flesh and solely related to the flesh, the 
other, though born likewise of the flesh, receptive of a 
higher principle from God, — the men whom the Father 
draws, the men whom he does not draw. God gives his 
Son, not to save all, but those who believe on his name. 
Some are, potentially even, incapable of this. Is God, then, 
the author of sin ? No : Light cannot be the cause of Dark- 
ness, Life of Death, Love of Hate. Whence, then, the fatal 
cause ? It lies in the rooted dualism of spirit and flesh, — 
in the nature of that which is eternal opposition to what 
God is. These are children of the devil, creations of the 
power in whom good does not dwell. It is not because God 
is not willing to impart the divine to them, but by deriva- 
tion they do not belong to the category of those he can 
draw. Good is a nature, evil is a nature, each attracted 
to its like, each repelled from its opposite. Is the question 
asked, Whence the devil ? Whence the essential evil ? the 
only reply that can be given is that this is a question this 
Gospel does not so much as entertain. It simply recognizes 
evil and its author as existing, as rooted in a common 
essence, as proceeding to manifest their logical necessities. 
Such issues as those of free-will and personal accountability 
were foreign to this mode of thought. The Logos enters 
the world, assumes flesh, through its veil manifests a glory 
that draws all who ape spiritually qualified to appreciate such 
glory. The rest it repels. Throughout this whole Gospel, 
32 



240 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



we see this law of attraction and repulsion at work in as 
palpable a form as though we were overlooking a vessel 
filled with water, and watching: a little child now drawing: to 
a clustering centre with a magnet the miniature fishes and 
swans floating on the surface, and anon, by reversing the 
pole, scattering them irresistibly apart. Nor shall we under, 
stand the spirit of this work till we feel that its author was 
delineating the operation of a power as hidden, as elemental, 
and as undoubted by him as that which, in the hand of the 
child, is producing effects he sees to be what they are, and 
about which he asks no farther questions. 

Now, in view of all on which we have been dwelling, I, 
for one, am unable to see where any valid standing-ground 
can be found for the supposition of that kind of objective 
historical verity that attached to the Fourth Gospel in the 
ages in which it was believed to be the production of an 
accurate and unbiassed eye-witness, simply adding to the 
earlier Gospels a number of astonishing events and pro- 
foundly important discourses they had omitted. To insist 
on such a claim seems to me to sacrifice to mere vague tra- 
dition the positive knowledge we possess of the spirit in 
which the work is written, and of the whole chain of causes 
that had wrought the world to another and utterly different 
state of spiritual expectancy. A subjective influence, not 
only greater than the power of original, external facts, but 
that overrides such facts, that scorns large numbers of thern 
as of the earth earthy, that would wing its flight above them 
in free, creative sweep, has risen to absolute mastery. Nor 
is this a new thing. From the very outstart of Christianity, 
we encounter the might of this self-same impulse. It was 
the spirit of the age. It is already rife in the mind of Paul. 
Outright does he glory in not having seen and known Christ 
in the flesh. It is as inner revealer, as inspiration of his 
own spirit's unfolding of the hidden mystery of that Pal- 
estinian life in time and sense, that Paul hails and adores 
Jesus. Throughout the acknowledged Epistles of the grand 
apostle to the Gentiles, and onward through those written 
in his name, like Hebrews and Colossiaiis, does this same 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



241 



tendency show itself in ever-increasing progress. Already 
Reflection of God, Maker and Upholder of all things, the 
intense absorption of the age in theologic adoration is, under 
our very eyes, steadily advancing the name of Jesus toward 
deification. And if we ask, Why did not the power of origi- 
nal, external fact arrest this process, and draw back the mind 
to sober and solid reality ? the answer simply is that there 
was no interest felt in original, external fact, that could for a 
moment contend with the fervor and passion of the thirst 
after supernatural vision. Who, where masses of men are 
burning to burst the bonds of time and sense, to deify and 
to adore, wants what seems earth-born, prosaic fact ? Woe 
to the man that dares to interpose it ! Woe to the sect 
of faithful Ebionites even, and on the very soil of Palestine, 
that dare to maintain the earlier, humbler tradition ! Swiftly 
do they become heretics, revilers, blasphemers, though 
sanctioned by a James, brother of the Lord. Facts ! The 
yearning and creative spirit can evolve what pass for them 
by the million, evolve them more resplendent, more profound 
than the original, fuller of symbolic light, more harmonious 
with what seems the higher vision. Can evolve them ! Did 
evolve them ! We are standing here on absolute historic 
ground, and raising no hypotheses. Every apocryphal Gos- 
pel, every early Church Father, is but in line by line an 
attestation of the fact. Not an incident in the life of an 
apostle even, like that of the advanced age to which John 
lived on in Ephesus, but was destined ultimately to be raised 
into some touching legend, in which it was revealed to the 
believing heart how he never really died at all, but lay sleep- 
ing in his grave, where, the ground gently heaving with his 
breath, he awaited in tranquil peace the second coming of 
his Lord. And yet, in the face and eyes of all this, we hear 
men continually asking, " Where (if they are not records of 
objective realities) did the narrations of the Fourth Gospel 
come from?" To ask such questions, as though they con- 
tained staggering arguments, is to be destitute of all historic 
sense, is to ignore the whole function of imagination in 
shaping the poetry and religion of the world, is to feel no 



242 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



pulse-beat of appreciation of a mighty passion that has 
lifted on its tide whole ages and races of men. As well 
might the Roman Catholic ask in triumph, Whence all the 
pathos and tenderness, all the consolation, grace, and ecstatic 
'vision, millions — and among them grand intelligences and 
canonized saints — have received of Mary, Mother of God 
and Queen of Heaven, if, as you say, she were but the 
humble, loving, Palestinian mother of Jesus of Nazareth ? 
Whence? Nowhere, if we ignore the soul of man, its insa- 
tiable craving after love and help, and its creative power of 
bodying forth a realm where all these yearnings are satisfied, 
and it reaps " beauty for ashes, the garment of praise for 
the spirit of heaviness." 

The Fourth Gospel has for generations been very dear to 
the human heart. Men and women, the most practical, the 
most intellectual, the most spiritual, have loved it. Without 
analyzing its contents or giving the reason why, they have 
yet felt it imparted a hidden something to them the other 
Gospels did not impart. A noble and saintly brother of our 
own household of the faith, who in devout humility conse- 
crated the rarest gifts and graces to the life-long service of 
an obscure village parish, wrote a beautiful book on it, called 
The Heart of Christ, — a book to my mind critically worth- 
less, but spiritually invaluable ; and the story is told of the 
rapture with which Horace Greeley, the restlessly moiling 
editor, spoke of the fountain of living water that volume had 
set flowing for him, amid the hurry and rush, the din and 
clang, of that modern pandemonium, the printing-place of a 
daily newspaper. Men feel more deeply than they know. 
All hidden from their eyes may be the stupendous fact that 
the outcome of the toil and travail of that great Aryan race 
whose blood and passion circulate in their own veins has 
been poured along with the Semitic flood into that wonder- 
ful Gospel ; but none the less, I repeat, do they feel the 
something there that is not in the other Gospels, and by 
which they are startled with a peculiar thrill. 

The Gospel of John, while stern and terrible in its denun- 
ciation of the alien world of the children of darkness and 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



243 



Satan, is for all the children of the light the gospel of 
devout contemplation and tender sentiment. It opens the 
portals into the heart of the inner, mystic, adoring love 
of the associated believers, the drawn-of-the-Father, and 
breathes the aroma of exquisite unity and peace, above the 
smoke and stir of this dim place which men call earth. It is 
of its very charm that it ushers the soul into a purely ideal 
realm, and becomes a temporary refuge from the sharply 
individual shapes and accentuated passions and interests of 
the actual world, that it does for this later world what a soft 
and silvery robing of bridal haze does for the granite moun- 
tain and rugged cliff, what the translucent cloud screen for 
the full moon, making itself felt from behind. Perpetually 
is the reader reminded of the grace of those celestial visions 
of the Holy Family, on which Raphael has poured out the 
exuberant tenderness of his genius, — the picture, not of 
ordinary domestic love with its prosaic accompaniments, but 
of transfigured motherhood and of ideal childhood. True, 
it has become the fashion of the age to disparage Raphael. 
He is pronounced too monotonously ideal. Desperate real- 
ists enough there are, who would prize the picture a thou- 
sand-fold more highly, had the great painter only consented 
to put in a few human touches, and to depict the infant 
Jesus pulling the hair of the infant John, while in turn the 
John was inflicting some shape of torment on the lamb. 
Suffice it to say that this was not the manner in which 
Raphael worked. No more was it that which commended 
itself to the author of this kindred Gospel. 

Jesus is indeed here a spiritual power that has entered 
into history. His original redeeming spirit pervades the 
hearts of his followers. His call to the weary and heavy- 
laden, and he would give them rest ; his vision of the 
heavenly kingdom, sweet with the peace of God and the 
love of man, — breathe a celestial atmosphere abroad. But it 
is the Jesus glorified after the manner of a new race of be- 
lievers, the Jesus who, one element only in a vast theologic 
movement, has been deified into Eternal Author, Inspirer, 
Rtiler of it all. It is the Jesus potent to establish the sense 



244 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



of indestructible unity because of the adorable truth that 
before all worlds he was and is and returns to be, one in 
essence with God, "real presence" in his chosen ones. 
Utterly abolished in the minds of these worshippers has 
become the original Jewish conception of the abyss of sepa- 
ration in being between God and all that can wear the 
shape of man. And so, in the eternal foundation of the 
believer's peace, are we reminded of that rich line of Milton, 

" Such sober certainty of waking bliss, I never felt till now." 

The realm of beatitude into which this wonderful Gospel 
ushers the hearts of "the drawn of the Father" has been 
called an exclusive one. It has been termed "the rose 
garden of the petted saints," and stout and loyal champions 
of salvation for all or none, have flung off from it indig- 
nantly. Let us meet this objection fairly. The sphere into 
which the congenial spirit is here admitted is undeniably 
a limited one; but it is as wide as the eternal nature of 
things made possible. Evermore must the children of the 
Heavenly One ray out light and love. They must yearn to 
win over all who could be won. That an elemental evil, 
rooted in the eternal antagonism of Light and Darkness, 
would somewhere bring them against an iron barrier, was 

<_> o > 

not their guilt. Now, this admitted, forgive me when I say 
that in this very atmosphere of seclusion we encounter a 
large element of the peculiar charm imparted by this Gospel, 
as much so as in the sacred stillness of a grove we find relief 
from the din and turmoil of a city. Humanity craves a 
certain element of exclusiveness as one condition of its rich- 
est life. Monotonous and unremitting work, even benevo- 
lent and reformatory, has in it a fatal tendency toward 
vulgarization of spirit. Pursued to the point where the 
powers are sheer drained out, it ends in strain and shallow- 
ness, in pain and despair. Men crave and imperatively need 
the realm in which they can yield themselves up to the 
luxury, the soul-freedom, the sweetness and light of a circle 
of purely congenial spirits. Then only does the mind enjoy 
its hours of play. All life enforces the need of this. The 
hard-worked teachers in the public schools cry out for their 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



245 



share in a happy, exclusive world with one another, — the 
world which neither girl 

" Nor boy, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
* Can utterly abolish or destroy." 

So the artists, the merchants, the men of science, the 
women with their clubs without men, and the men with their 
clubs without women, all in their several ways attesting the 
inner feeling that their particular Judas must go out before 
the high rapture will begin. 

Now it is the permanent charm of this Gospel that it is so 
beautiful a picture of just such a sphere, even if a limited 
one. Hence flowed the sweet and soothing fragrance that, 
stealing in upon the sense of Horace Greeley amid the hurry 
and rush of the editorial room, the din and clang of the 
mammoth press, made him feel in his heart of hearts how 
he yearned for, needed or he must die, some such refuge 
from the terrible exactions of that very humanity he was 
toiling for, and yet which would, from the irresistible power 
of elemental forces within itself, continue on for centuries to 
be largely as blind and intractably averse to light as it was 
to-day. True, such an exclusive realm of sweetness and 
light has its peril. So has everything beautiful, — music, 
poetry, domestic love. But escape is not to be sought in 
making the whole world barren and prosaic, and insisting 
that no elect spirits shall revel together in nature, light, love, 
unity, until the last incorrigible hater of them is started out 
of his lair. Would that this marvellous Gospel had a free and 
universal faith that the beatitude it chants for those drawn- 
of-the-Father was but a fore-taste of what should "fall at 
last, far off, at last for all." But it had not. In the final 
ecstatic prayer of the Jesus it portrays, we are borne so high 
and wide that we hold our breath in expectant sense that 
now the last barriers will be broken through. But no : this 
cannot be. The dualism is too profound and elemental. 
Against its adamantine wall does even his celestial voice, in 
its highest strain, break and fall. 

Do we ask who wrote this wondrous Gospel ? Mysterious 



246 INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



its origin, as that wind of which its author speaks, which 
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof 
and canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it s:oeth. 
As with the Great Unknown of the book of Job, the Great 
Unknown of the later Isaiah, the ages keep his secret. 
The first absolutely indisputable evidences of the existence 
of the book date from the latter half of the second century. 
Strong but not entirely satisfactory marks, as of quotation 
from actual phrases and sentences it employs, may be traced 
to the middle of the same century, or a little earlier. But, 
as has already been urged to repletion, such phraseology and 
all the implications of dogma and system they involve were 
the theologic atmosphere in which vast numbers lived and 
breathed and had their being. The main satisfactory early 
traces of the Fourth Gospel come to us from Gnostic 
sources, and this is precisely what its own inner nature 
would lead us to anticipate. Its ultimate authority in the 
Catholic Church was due, no doubt, to the recognition and tri- 
umph of so many of the conceptions of that powerful Gnostic 
element that at one time seems to have constituted the 
intensest force and fire of the Asiatic Church. For the belief 
that John, the apostle, was its author, it is probably itself 
mainly accountable. Yet even this John, woven in so indis- 
tinguishably with the tide of its discourse that often it 
becomes impossible to tell where Jesus ceases to speak and 
he begins, is as much the figure of an ideal world as are all 
the other figures. It cannot be too often repeated : there are 
no real characters in this Gospel, there are simply embodied 
sentiments and ideas. Nicodemus, the woman of Samaria, 
the paralytic of the pool, the congenitally blind man, the 
Jewish race, — all are but symbols of conditions of soul. The 
mystic truth which, under the Johannine veil in which he 
enwraps and so elusively hides his own personality, the 
author seeks to indicate, is that, as none can reveal God but 
the coessential Son hidden in the bosom of the Father, so 
none can interpret the Christ but "the beloved disciple," 
dissolved with him in unity of love. 

Personally, therefore, I see no other ground we can take 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



247 



than that in the Fourth Gospel we are dealing with a 
free, ideal composition, in which a single mind of tran- 
scendent spiritual genius gives expression to the results of 
the travail and yearning of a whole great epoch; with a 
devout theosophic glorifying of the person and work of 
Christ, as he has come to be worshipped by a host of be- 
lievers. Founded, no doubt, in a measure on traditions 
existing in the Church, those traditions have yet been so 
continuously modified to harmonize with the spiritual de- 
mands of an advancing system that all attempt at sifting 
out original historic verities must prove impracticable. 

When shall we come to read this marvellous book as freely 
and helpfully as we are now reading Edwin Arnold's Light 
of Asia ? Over the spiritual depths unfolded in that, every 
man of devout heart can hang in rapture, and all around us 
to-day do we hear men and women crying out in spontaneous 
delight. Is the reason far to seek ? Is it other than simply 
this ? No vain and empty questionings about external mate- 
rial fact invade its ideal and holy realm. A leaf torn out of 
the heart of one of the world's most pathetic, most tri- 
umphant experiences, is there for our souls to commune with. 
Shall we arrest the heart's full flow, and, getting out our 
books of archaeology and our calculus of probabilities, fall 
doggedly to the prosaic question whether, in reality, the 
sympathetic tree bent down its branches to make a secluded 
arbor for Maya, in which to bear the saviour Buddha, while 
the grass broke into flowers for a bed for her, and water 
leaped out of the rock for the child's first crystal bath ; 
whether Buddha's veritable cousin shot the wild swan, the 
sight of whose blood-stained plumage awoke the boy to that 
passionate outburst the child-heart ever feels when first con- 
fronted with the realities of pain and death ; whether, in 
fine, the description of the palace and enchanted grounds, in 
which the vain attempt was made to shut out the youth's 
compassionate heart from all knowledge of earth's misery, 
were historically exact, and even there 

" He would start up and cry, £ My world ! O world ! 
I hear, I know, I come ' " ? 

33 



248 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Enough that in such beautiful legends the grateful heart of 
humanity uttered its sense of the immeasurable debt it owed 
to its self-abdicating deliverer, and created a realm in which 
it could be free to range in rapture. 

Brethren, in respect of this our Fourth Gospel, as of all 
works conceived out of a like spiritual impulse, we are des- 
tined to witness, I humbly believe, a fresh illustration of the 
great law laid down for sculpture by Thorwaldsen, when he 
said that the clay was the life, the plaster the death, the 
marble the resurrection. First, historically, do we ever be- 
hold a plastic external material, responsive to every touch of 
the shaping spirit and taking on such forms of grace or 
beauty as the spirit dictates. To this a plaster age succeeds, 
when the wondrous form is cast in rigid, dogmatic mould, 
cold, opaque, and lifeless ; at last, in the resurrection of the 
spirit, the shining out once more, through the translucent 
veil of the marble, of the inner idea, sole cause and glorifier. 



METHODS OF DEALING WITH SOCIAL 
QUESTIONS. 

By Rev. J. B. HARRISON. 

The following abstract of this essay appeared in The Christian Reg- 
ister of November I : — 

The very nature of society implies relations and reciprocal 
obligations among the individuals. In the simplest form of 
society, the village, people live near enough to each other to 
work together ; but, for many of the larger interests of ' soci- 
ety, we can work directly with only a few hundred persons, 
at the most, and much of the best work is done by the co- 
operation of a score or so of persons in each village. A city 
is, in most of its social aspects, an aggregation of villages. 
For nearly all practical purposes and interests, the 7iation is 
the boundary of our social relations. Our special or particu- 
lar social interests in America are the divisions and depart- 
ments of our general national or social life, including a hun- 
dred different questions arising from the complex conditions 
of our time. The social questions which arise are questions 
which concern the best methods of treating these important 
interests. Some of these great social and national questions 
have not yet been touched in America by any method, or in 
any definite way whatever ; some of these matters the 
Church has not even considered, and of course has not for- 
mulated or developed any method of dealing with them. 
Again, some of the social conditions in this country are so 
new, the constitution, environment, and tendencies of society 
are so unique, that the Church has not yet had time to adapt 
itself to the peculiar exigencies. But some of the questions 
are old and universal, and history gives us the record of the 
Church's treatment of them. Science, however, has no rep- 



■ 



2 5° 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS, 



resentative organization, like that of the Church ; and by the 
phrase " scientific methods" we must understand methods 
which are in accordance with science, which are suggested by 
the result of observation, experiment, and careful study of 
facts. Scientific methods are not always fully developed or 
exactly determined; and, in dealing with the formal subject 
of this essay, we can but examine the Church methods of 
dealing with these all-important questions, to see how far 
they are scientific. For the Church methods are already 
partly scientific, — that is, they are more or less the result 
of observation and experiment, the comparison of facts, and 
the co-ordination of practical experience. 

The Church is chiefly devoted to religion, which it usually 
regards as one thing, not the thing which includes every 
other department and interest of human life. Of. course 
this former view of the function of the Church has its nat- 
ural difficulties, as well as its natural justification. But it 
is important to observe that religion, strictly speaking, does 
not give method. Method, by the nature of things, belongs 
to scientific knowledge and intellectual judgment. Religion 
is not an intellectual activity ; it is chiefly trust, obligation, 
obedience, — an inspiration of power. Religion does not use 
analysis, classification, and synthesis of facts. Religious 
men may use these methods, but they are the methods of 
science. It is the social function of science to discover the 
best available methods of dealing with social questions ; it 
is the function of religion to supply the impulsion, obliga- 
tion, patient seriousness and trust, without which the best 
methods can never be adequately applied or followed. 

The Church is also devoted to other things besides relig- 
ion, taken in the narrow, ecclesiastical sense. It has always 
been in some measure devoted to morality, to education, and 
some other secular interests, though she has usually been, 
since the rise of Protestantism, afraid to say so. The 
Church methods of dealing with these great interests have 
always been partly scientific, but they have been much more 
largely sentimental and traditional, continued because they 
were adopted in ancient times, though in conditions of 
society totally different from those which now exist. 



METHODS OF DEALING WITH SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 25 1 

What is now required of the Church is that she shall give 
greatly increased attention to education, sanitary affairs, 
national morality, and other secular interests, while at the 
same time she deepens and intensifies her religious vitality. 
In former days and other lands, the Church had far closer 
connection with the general social interests of the people. 
Now, in our own country, most of the secular work of the 
Church is devoted to education and alms-giving — popularly 
called charity. 

During most of her career, the Church has done the best 
educational work which has been available, — work which 
appears to have been indispensable to human advancement. 
This work is still necessary ; for science, in its modern devel- 
opment, still lacks earnestness and morality. The Church 
methods of education are largely traditional, sentimental, 
and unpractical, retained because they have been effective in 
former times. Church schools are generally narrow and un- 
American, educating children for an unreal world, instead of 
guiding them in the life they must live on earth. It seems 
peculiarly difficult for church people to realize that there is 
a new environment here, to the conditions of which education 
must be adapted. 

After education, the most important social work of the 
Church is " charity," — the relief of poverty, destitution, and 
physical suffering. The endowment and maintenance of hos- 
pitals is fast passing to secular influence; but the Church 
still prompts, directs, and administers most of the enormous 
alms-giving. Here the sentimental and traditional church 
methods are especially dangerous and irrational. * Wasting 
money by giving it foolishly, the Church robs the industrious, 
provident, and moral, for the support of the lazy, wasteful, 
and vicious, and, by its ill-advised " charities," perpetuates 
and multiplies pauperism, vice, and crime. It is certain that 
if anything is wicked, sinful, and in direct defiance of God's 
laws, it is the giving money or means of living to idle men 
who have strength to work. Science and common-sense 
both demand that the Church shall either disregard the New 
Testament injunctions about alms-giving, or else find a new 



2$2 INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

interpretation of them. Beggary should not be permitted, 
and only the absolutely helpless should be supported at the 
public expense. It would be a blessing if we could make it 
impossible for any man, pauper or millionaire, to live an 
idler. 

The churches and some of our religious newspapers are 
characterized by exuberant optimism, approaching the dis- 
cussion of great social interests by the singing of jubilant 
hymns, and the quoting of fragments of mal d propos 
Hebrew prophecies. Our optionists are sentimental enough, 
and have a natural contempt for facts. Comfortable them- 
selves, they cannot understand the condition and life of less 
fortunate people, — the great, silent multitude who work with 
their hands. Along with these effeminate sentimentalists 
are scientific optimists, who think the true use of science is 
to furnish material for Darwinian essays, and regard the 
facts of human life as chiefly valuable as illustrations for their 
interminable speculations. Scientific men are doing even 
less than the Church to teach people how to live in this 
world ; and both science and the Church have less reason for 
boasting than for shame at having done so little. The true 
method of dealing with social questions is first to carefully 
examine and compare the facts of our social environment, 
then to use this knowledge in the invention and application 
of remedies for the evils. This is the method of science, 
and it is the proper method for the Church. We may briefly 
consider some special directions in which this method may 
well be applied. 

The Church should turn its attention to sanitary reform. 
She should exorcise the fiends of loathsome disease, that 
lurk in the dark places of our cities, taking advantage of the 
ignorance of rich and poor, and ravaging the palace as well 
as the hovel. Filth is disease. Diphtheria slays more than 
does the yellow fever. It is the duty of those who under- 
stand the laws of public health to teach them to others. 

The whole subject of popular education and schools for 
the children of the laboring classes needs immediate and 
earnest attention. The educational methods of our public 



METHODS OF DEALING WITH SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 253 

school are unwise, cramming the children with too many 
subjects, and doing little to prepare them for practical life. 
Our system of dealing with the Indians is an outrageous 
one. The country should learn the facts by sending patient, 
competent observers to study the frontier relations. The 
actual constitutional and legal relation of the national gov- 
ernment to the governments and people of the several States 
is of profound importance, on account of the abnormal rela- 
tions which have grown out of the civil war. The actual 
relation of the national government to South Carolina and 
Mississippi is precisely the same as its relation to Rhode 
Island and Massachusetts ; and the partisan politicians who, 
for their own personal purposes, have done what they could 
to inflame sectional hatred and jealousy are traitors; and it 
is a pitiful sight to see religious editors, who profess to 
follow the Prince of Peace, following in the lead of unscru- 
pulous partisans, and dealing out denunciations and menaces 
against citizens of other States. The true scientific method 
here calls for an adequate study of the condition of the 
South, which, with the patient devotion of religious influ- 
ence, shall cultivate the feeling of fraternity between the 
people of all parts of our common country. The vicious 
juvenile literature demands our attention. Many of the 
books read in "cultivated families " are written by persons 
who would not be admitted to the house as friends or guests. 
The scientific method requires that we should live with our 
children, and thus guide them in their reading. 

The conditions and circumstances of the laboring men 
and their families, and the tendencies of their thought and 
feeling, are almost unknown to the cultivated classes. This 
is the greatest of all social interests in America, and a con- 
stantly widening chasm is opening. There is some injustice 
and great misunderstanding on both sides ; and the work- 
ingmen are coming more and more under the influence of 
earnest men, who sincerely teach the most dangerous doc- 
trines. The scientific method suggests that we must study 
the people, and teach them. The people of wealth and 
culture are responsible for the education and character of 



254 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



the laboring classes; and unless they will freely share their 
culture and education with the less fortunate, they cannot 
hope to retain their position of pecuniary advantage. We 
ought to expend a million of dollars in new means and 
agencies for teaching the people, during the next three years, 
as a beginning; and, considering the pecuniary losses it 
would prevent, it would be a profitable business enterprise. 
We need small books and newspapers and magazines, pre- 
pared especially for the education of the working-people ; 
and cultivated people should learn to speak to the unedu- 
cated classes in simple language, without any stilted elegan- 
cies of style and language. We have put absolute political 
power into the hands of capricious, unreasoning majorities; 
and the only scientific remedy for our evils is the instruction 
and education of the people. The essayist speaks on this 
subject from the most earnest convictions, founded on long, 
careful, scientific study of the conditions of American society. 

The condition of the prisons and insane asylums, the 
character of the national currency, the existence of power- 
ful corporations, — all demand this scientific attention. We 
must learn from our hard experience to adopt means to 
prevent the recurrence of hard times, which, if they come 
again, will be likely to be more disastrous than the business 
depression from which we are now slowly recovering. The 
feeling that, if the workingmen do not threaten serious dis- 
turbance of the public peace, we need not care much to 
improve their condition, is unscientific and immoral. They 
need teaching and guidance ; and if we do not share our 
advantages with them, we shall not be able to retain those 
advantages ourselves. These are some of the chief things 
which demand the scientific method of dealing with social 
interests in this time of rapid and unexpected social changes. 

In every village the ministers might do much, working 
with a few serious young men and women, to quicken the 
general life around them, develop public spirit, and guide 
it into work for real improvement in the way of better read- 
ing, better sanitary conditions, and closer and more general 
co-operation among the people formoral ends. This would 
soon quicken and improve the life of the whole nation. 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 



By Rev. GEORGE BATCHELOR. 

After this essay was planned and partly composed, the 
publication of Mr. Spencer's Data of Ethics made it necessary 
for your essayist to suspend his work until he could deter- 
mine, by such examination as the time would allow, whether 
he should continue it as an independent student of ethical 
science, or come here as an exponent of the doctrines of 
Mr. Spencer. A careful reading of Mr. Spencer's book 
has convinced me that it does not contain all the data of 
ethics, and moreover — what is more to my purpose as a be- 
liever in the general doctrine of evolution — it does not con- 
tain the most important conclusions which may be drawn by 
one who accepts the general principles and methods which 
have shaped Mr. Spencer's system. As it stands, The Data 
of Ethics does not furnish such an explanation of ethical 
evolution as would give us a complete history of the past; 
nor such an exposition of ethical principles as might furnish 
a sufficient standard for the future. 

In studying ethics and the law of social evolution, we must 
remember one characteristic of the science wherein it differs 
from many others. We are to inquire not merely what is, 
but also what ought to be ; and not merely what ought to be 
in accordance with immutable laws which work beyond 
human control, but also what ought to be in regard to means 
and ends which are to be the result of human choice, will- 
ing, and action, 



2 5 6 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



The discussion will be limited to a consideration of human 
life upon the earth. For although the ethical conceptions of 
one who believes in God and the immortal life cannot be pre- 
cisely the same as those of one who does not believe in them, 
the influence of religion upon ethics will not change the 
nature of moral action nor shift its standards. It will have 
its effect rather upon the intensity of conviction, the energy 
with which moral ends will be pursued, the emphasis to be 
laid upon certain duties, and the account to be made of con- 
ceivable results which extend beyond the limits of terrestrial 
life. 

Thirty years ago Mr. Spencer wrote of the " Divine Idea," 
and of "Scientific Morality " as a " statement of the mode 
in which life must be regulated so as to conform " to the 
conditions under which that idea was to be realized. To-day 
he drops the phrase and the method; and without detri- 
ment to our argument we may follow his example. 

Ethics, according to Mr. Spencer, "has for its subject- 
matter that form which universal conduct assumes during 
the last stages of its evolution." "Acts are called good or 
bad according as they are well or ill adjusted to ends." In 
the ethical sense, " conduct is considered by us as good or 
bad, according as its aggregate results, to self or others or 
both, are pleasurable or painful." "Pleasure somewhere, at 
some time, to some being or beings, is an inexpugnable ele- 
ment of the conception." 

Conduct is considered under four aspects, as physical, 
biological, psychological, and sociological. 

Taking the physical view, the progress of evolution is 
toward a moving equilibrium, and consists in the passage 
" from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, 
coherent heterogeneity." (For popular use, the formula 
would be not less exact and more expressive, if we should 
render it, " the passage from an indefinite, incoherent same- 
ness to a definite, coherent diversity.) As the physical life 
becomes more definite, coherent, and diversified, the rhythm 
of internal actions and the rhythm of external actions must 
be so adjusted to each other that the combined motions of 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 



257 



all kinds will duly meet every daily process, every ordinary 
occurrence, and every contingency of one's environment. 

From the biological point of view, the process of evolution 
leads by a like method to a balance of functions. Every 
function must be performed in such a way as to maintain 
complete life for the time being, and also to prolong life, 
while it affords an immediate quantum of pleasure. " Actions 
are completely right only when, besides being conducive to 
future happiness, special and general, they are immediately 
pleasurable," and " painfullness, not only ultimate but proxi- 
mate, is the concomitant of actions which are wrong." " It 
matters not, from the biological point of view, whether the 
motives prompting them are high or low. The vital func- 
tions accept no apologies on the ground that neglect of them 
was unavoidable, or that the reason for neglect was noble." 

From the psychological point of view, the problem is more 
complex. " Here we have to consider represented pleasures 
and pains, sensational and emotional, as constituting delib- 
erate motives, as forming factors in the conscious adjustment 
of acts to ends." 

Evolution is from the simple to the complex. Feelings 
acquire authority as they become compound. " Proximate 
results are compared with remote. The more ideal motives 
concern ends that are more distant." The genesis of the 
moral consciousness occurs when the effort is made to bring 
some feeling or feelings under the control of some other 
feeling or feelings. In passing from the state in which 
immediate and simple ends are always sought, men pass 
under three restraints, which, though not moral, prepare for 
the emergence of the moral restraint. These three are the 
social restraint, beginning in the mutual fear of savages ; the 
political restraint, beginning in the fear of chiefs ; the relig- 
ious restraint, beginning in the fear of ghosts. These three 
controls severally lead men to subordinate proximate satis- 
factions to remote satisfactions, " yet they do not constitute 
moral control, but are only preparatory to it, are controls 
within which the moral control evolves." The restraints 
properly distinguished as moral refer not to the extrinsic, 



2 5 8 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



but to the intrinsic effects of actions, the consequences 
which the acts naturally produce. With a perception of 
these consequences, there have grown " up moral aversions 
and approvals," "which, being gradually organized and in- 
herited, have come to be quite independent of conscious 
experience." 

Moral obligation is an abstract notion, the result of expe- 
rience : first, of the necessity of subordinating near to remote 
pleasures ; second, of submitting to the various restraints, 
social, political, and religious. These being often exercised 
in connection with the moral control have come to be asso- 
ciated with it. But, as the moral control emerges from the 
other motives, the feeling of obligation begins to fade, and 
will diminish as fast as moralization increases. " If some 
action, to which the special motive is insufficient, is per- 
formed in obedience to the feeling of moral obligation, the 
fact proves that the special faculty concerned is not yet 
equal to its function, has not acquired such strength that the 
required activity has become its normal activity, yielding its 
due amount of pleasure." The sociological point of view 
supplements the physical, biological, and psychological. 
The unit must be considered in relation to the whole. At 
first, society must protect itself regardless of the unit ; but, 
when the social organism is safe, the welfare of the unit 
takes precedence. Societies, mutually antagonistic to each 
other, create a constantly changing ratio between the con- 
duct appropriate to a state of war and a state of peaceful 
co-operation. But, as war gives way to the industrial state, 
the necessary compromises which have established tempo- 
rary moralities give way to a final, permanent code, which 
admits of being definitely formulated. The fundamental re- 
quirement of this code is that the life-sustaining actions of 
each shall severally bring him the amounts and kinds of 
advantage naturally achieved by them ; and this implies that 
he shall suffer no aggressions direct or indirect. Further 
than this, men will facilitate life for one another by the 
exchange of services, at first mutually agreed upon, after- 
ward by reciprocities beyond any contract. 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 



259 



This is a general outline of the argument. The remainder 
of the book is taken up with a consideration of objections, an 
elaboration of subsidiary arguments, and the working out of 
the compromises necessary to bring the theory into relation 
with the facts of man's moral experience, and make it a good 
working hypothesis. 

The fundamental statement with which the argument 
begins and ends is " that the final justification for maintain- 
ing life can only be the reception from it of a surplus of 
pleasurable feeling over painful feeling; and that goodness 
or badness can be ascribed to acts which subserve life or 
hinder life, only on this supposition." " The good is univer- 
sally the pleasurable." 

This discussion, so far as it relates to Mr. Spencer's theory, 
will be limited to the statement that the production of happi- 
ness is the highest end of moral action. 

Before discussing the merits of this theory, I shall make 
the statement which I had prepared because it will bring into 
notice a different, and I think more powerful, incentive to the 
highest moral action, one which is not antagonistic to the love 
of happiness as a moral incentive, but supplementary to it, im- 
plicitly contained in Mr. Spencer's theory, but nowhere 
explicitly stated. I make the statement with diffidence 
because it is new, and has not been sufficiently criticised. 
But I submit it with confidence, because it seems to me to 
be a logical deduction from the law of evolution ; because it 
supplements what seem to me to be the defective systems of 
Darwin and Spencer ; because I cannot apply it ':o any case 
of moral casuistry where it does not suggest a shorter 
answer, and indicate duty by a more immediate process than 
any other theory of evolution ; and because it accords with 
and explains in comprehensible terms the universal judg- 
ments of mankind. 

The foundation of morals lies in the perception of human 
rights. The primary rights which have been successively 
acknowledged are three : namely, 1. The right to life; 2. The 
right to happiness ; 3. The right to improvement of life and 
enlargement of its resources. These primary rights of the 



260 INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 

individual are the measure of his duties to society. These 
duties are the negative and positive forms of obligation to 
respect the life, the happiness, and the improvement of others 
in society. These three primary rights and their correlated 
duties come into notice in regular order. They are acted 
upon as instincts before they appear as rational perceptions. 
They are necessary amplifications of the belief that any- 
body has a right to live. Each right and duty is absolute on 
its own level, and over all below it, so long as it does not 
conflict with a higher range of rights and duties. If there 
be any conflict, the lower gives way to the higher. The 
lower obligations emerge first. When life is held by a slen- 
der tenure, everything is adapted to the conduct which will 
ensure safety. When safety is secured, the right of happi- 
ness becomes a higher law by which all mutual relations in 
society are regulated. Life and happiness being fairly es- 
tablished, the longing to increase the quantity and improve 
the quality of life establishes a new order of moral relations. 

How the love of life and the love of happiness, which 
suggest the right and duty to maintain them, have become 
part of the human constitution, we need not consider at 
length ; for they are now commonplaces in the literature 
of evolution. But a word of explanation may be necessary 
concerning that which I have made the third stage of moral 
evolution, — the improvement of life. I do not find any one 
word which expresses what I mean by that phrase. It is 
improvement, betterment, progress, development, evolution, — 
improvement of conditions, betterment of function, increas- 
ing adaptation of means to ends, development of all one's 
native powers ; and it is something more than all these. It 
is in some form a perception of the orderly course of unfold- 
ing which has brought human life to its present perfection. 
It is also an instinct which in the course of that unfolding 
has been developed in the human mind, in precisely the 
same way that the instinct of sympathy, and the instinctive 
love of life and happiness have been produced. 

On the theory of evolution, many ages before man became 
a rational being, there was going on a process by which he 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER 



26l 



was being shaped and guided toward that rational stage. 
At first, he was the blind, unconscious subject of laws. If 
he was adapted to his surroundings, he survived. If not, he 
perished. Among those who survived were naturally those 
who wanted to survive, and who had the best resources for 
detence. They also who had the greatest relish for the 
pleasure-giving acts which sustain and prolong life, and were 
best equipped with the means of securing those pleasures, 
were most likely to live and propagate their kind. In like 
manner, and long before man became aware of the process 
by which he was being shaped, the instinct of evolution 
began to appear. They who had the greatest desire to im- 
prove the quality of their lives procured the best imple- 
ments, weapons, food, clothing, and shelter, and constantly 
tended to become superior to their rivals and antagonists, 
who had no such impulse. It is in accordance with the law 
of evolution to say that, when man appeared on the earth 
a rational creature, capable of noting his own actions and 
meditating upon them, he was already, by no act or determi- 
nation of his own, a progressive being. When he comes to 
the rational stage, he begins to act with reference to a per- 
ception of this fact. The law of evolution was a matter of 
daily observation. It was clearly seen in the progress of 
each individual as he passed from infancy to maturity. It 
was clearly seen that the welfare and dignity of each indi- 
vidual required him to make that passage successfully. Man 
was not long in discovering that not only was there a 
natural and orderly process of evolution for the individual, 
but that each could by his own resources so aid that develop- 
ment that the whole series of improvements might be lifted 
far above that which would go on under favorable circum- 
stances without special effort, and also that the whole series 
might be degraded or even reversed by the acts of the indi- 
vidual or the acts of his fellows, even while they were 
seeking their pleasures. 

Still further, as man became possessed of reminiscences, 
traditions, and records of past generations, he became 
aware of improvements made on a larger scale, Whole 



262 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



families were to be contrasted, some advancing, some retro- 
grading, tribes improving or deteriorating, nations rising or 
falling. Without perceiving the philosophic law of evolu- 
tion, the fact was noted, and the principles it suggested 
applied. When it happened that man perceived this law of 
evolution, and began to classify the rights and duties which 
related to the maintenance of progress or operated as a 
check to deterioration, then for the first time, in the modern, 
ordinary, and highest sense, morality appeared. Before that 
time, man was like the brutes, subject to the law of natural 
selection ; after that, rational selection became the law of his 
conduct. Then for the first time was there present among 
the motives which regulate human action one which in all 
codes of morality is admitted to have absolute authority 
over all the passions and powers of the individual and the 
rights and privileges of society. 

This conception of an absolute and imperative obligation 
and opportunity has shaped both by heredity and by tradi- 
tion a whole class of aversions and approvals. Correspond- 
ing to the intuitive perceptions of symmetry, order, beauty, 
and grandeur in the outer world, there are now developed 
intuitive perceptions of the beauty and grandeur of the best 
products of moral evolution in human nature. Without 
regard to the production of pain and pleasure, without 
thought of the consequences which follow the possession of 
the highest manly and womanly qualities, these are now seen 
to be worthy to be attained, even at the sacrifice, if need be, 
of pleasure. A baby is delightful. But a man with baby 
ways is a slobbering idiot. All art celebrates the beauty of 
an infant. But a maiden with the form, features, and pro- 
portions of an infant, would be hideous. In like manner, 
men judge moral qualities, and act upon their judgments 
without reference to pain or pleasure. 

Literature is filled with passages which indicate this 
judgment. Take three, which successively illustrate the love 
of life, the love of intellectual power, and the love of prog- 
ress, when divorced from happiness. The love of life has 
been developed to such a degree that Walter Scott could 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 263 

describe the victim doomed to death by MacGregor's wife, in 
these terms : " He prayed for life, — for life he would give 
all he had in the world ; it was but life he asked, — life, if it 
were to be prolonged under tortures and privations : he 
asked only breath, though it should be . drawn in the damps 
of the lowest caverns of their hills." In the Council of 
Hell, Milton makes Belial express the longing of the rational 
creature to live the intellectual life, though it be cut off 
from happiness : — 

" To be no more. Sad cure, for who would lose, 
Though full of pain, this intellectual being, 
Those thoughts that wander through eternity, 
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost 
In the wide womb of uncreated night, 
Devoid of sense and motion ? " 

With still a higher flight, in the " Prometheus Unbound," 
Shelley describes the passionate love of that which leads to 
and maintains the highest forms of human virtue. 

Prometheus chained to the rocks is tormented by the 
fiends who do the will of Jupiter. Prometheus exclaims : — 

" No change, no pause, no hope ! Yet I endure." 

******** 

" Ah me ! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever ! " 

******** 

Mercury speaks : — 

" Alas ! 

Thou canst not count the years to come of pain ? " 

Prometheus replies, and the dialogue goes on : — 

" They last while Jove must reign : no more, nor less 
Do I desire or fear." 

Mer. " Yet pause and plunge 

Into Eternity, where recorded time, 
Even all that we imagine age on age, 
Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind 
Flags wearily in its unending flight, 
Till it sink dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless : 
Perchance it has not numbered the slow years, 
Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved." 



264 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Pro. " Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pass." 

Mer. " If thou couldst dwell among the gods the while 

Lapped in voluptuous joy " ? 

Pro. " I would not quit 

This bleak ravine, these unrepented pains." 

Mer. " Alas ! I wonder at, yet pity thee." 

Pro. " Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven, 

Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene, 
As light in the sun, throned : how vain is talk ! 
Call up the fiends." 

This conception of a possible progress towards and main- 
tenance of a higher stage of being, is the universal and pow- 
erful element in all moral codes. It is the only theory which 
gives dignity to the rights of the individual, and imposes 
upon him a duty which may in certain cases be paramount to 
all other obligations. Of the individual, society may demand 
all that he has but one thing, — his time, his money, his 
comfort, his happiness, his life. In emergencies, society 
has made these demands, and they have been honored in 
accordance with high ethical obligation. But one thing 
society may not demand, or, if demanded, the individual 
must not yield. Even society must not require the unit to 
reverse the law of evolution. On no moral ground can 
a man be justified if he consent to his own deterioration. 
Anything which requires man or woman to retrace the steps 
of progress which lead from the brute to the man, is con- 
demned by every code of morality under all circumstances ; 
and there is no other moral judgment which is thus absolute. 

In the highest sense, we call all acts good which tend to 
accelerate evolution, or maintain the results of it ; and we 
call all acts bad which tend to retard evolution, or destroy 
the results of it. The popular classification of bad actions 
shows how this idea is applied. Vices are wrong acts, which 
principally injure the individual; crimes are wrong acts, 
which principally injure society. The popular contempt for 
a vicious man is not caused by the fact that he ceases to 
become a useful member of society ; for society will often 
admire an energetic criminal who directly threatens and 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 



265 



actually imperils the peace of the world, if in so doing he 
asserts and glorifies his own personality, while they detest 
the man whose vices, in the popular phrase, "injure no one 
but himself" ; and this happens because the vicious man has 
evidently consented to and aided in his own degradation. 

It has always been seen that utility was, in some way, a 
test of moral action. But every attempt to establish it as 
such has ended ignominiously in some slough of selfishness. 
But, accepting the principle herein laid down, we may safely 
make utility the test of morals. In answer to the question, 
Useful for what? We may say, useful for life; useful for 
happiness ; useful for progress. Whatever is useful for either 
of these is right ; whatever is destructive of these is wrong ; 
with the general qualification that the higher usefulness, in 
case of any conflict of duties, always takes precedence over 
the lower. 

It now becomes the task of the superior members of the 
higher races so to organize society that each individual may 
as speedily and safely as possible pass these successive 
stages. They may be roughly classified as follows : — 

1. The non-moral, in which impulses are obeyed and im- 
mediate gratifications are sought, with no question as to 
whether they are useful or injurious. This stage of social 
existence corresponds to that of early childhood. 

2. The stage of physical morals, — the unconscious result 
of evolution. In this stage, that which is useful and agree- 
able is done without reflection. This corresponds to the 
morality of the pointer and the hound in Darwin's famous 
example. 

3. The stage of conventional and imitative morals, in 
which utility is made an empirical test. The fortunate 
results of right conduct are noted, th@ actions which seem to 
have served those who have attained a higher mode of life 
are imitated, and moral codes are accepted on authority. 
This corresponds to the use of logarithms by those who could 
not calculate the tables. 

4. Rational morals, the result of observation and reflec- 
tion, of discrimination and choice of the principles which 



266 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



tend to produce the best results within the conditions fur- 
nished by the existing environment. This corresponds to 
natural science and philosophy. 

5. Creative morality. In this stage, man conceives an 
ideal order of moral progress, nowhere provided for in any 
existing conditions, and sets himself to create a new environ- 
ment, adapted to the ideal order which he intends to estab- 
lish. This corresponds to nothing else in human life, for it is 
itself the consummate flower of moral progress. 

When the superior races attempt to superintend the 
passage of the whole human family through these successive 
stages of progress, the question will arise, whether to adopt 
the method of nature, to let those survive who can, and let 
those perish who must, leaving the sifting of materials to 
the law of natural selection. There are those who are ready 
to announce this as the scientific method. But judging from 
any scientific knowledge which we have, we must say that 
Nature is brutal in her methods, and merciless in the execu- 
tion of her penalties. Human society, attempting to imitate 
the methods which have been employed in shaping the 
earlier course of human evolution, would become an enlight- 
ened, but savage barbarism. The better conclusion must be, 
that Nature needs to be corrected, seconded, supplemented, 
by the rational foresight of the best-endowed members of the 
race. To natural selection must be added rational selection. 

The two criteria which we are now to contrast with each 
other are briefly these : The one, that the highest end of action 
which any man can conceive is so to live that he and others 
may enjoy the greatest attainable amount of happiness. The 
other is, that the highest conceivable end of action is so to 
live that both the unit and the mass of society shall con- 
stantly advance from the lower to the higher stages of mental 
and moral evolution, if necessary, without regard to conse- 
quences of pain and pleasure, extrinsic or intrinsic. Now it 
is undoubtedly true that the course of human life has been 
such that there is established a strong conviction that prog- 
ress and pleasure go together, and will ultimately be con- 
comitant in every case. But it is also clear, that the two are 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 



separable in thought, that they are often separated in experi- 
ence ; and it is doubtful whether this earth can ever furnish 
the conditions of their unbroken harmony. 

x-\mong the great merits of Mr. Spencer's theory are 
these : That it is founded upon the earth, among the lowest 
elements of our nature, in the lowest stages of its evolution ; 
that it deals with facts, and discloses many of the right rela- 
tions between the facts ; that it makes morality a practical 
affair, and appeals to the common sense of mankind for its 
sanctions ; that its standard is not too high ; and, above all, 
that it makes the happiness of mankind a chief right and 
duty. For the majority of mankind, the acceptance of the 
doctrine in its present form would require avast advance over 
their present moral conceptions. But the moral progress of 
the world does not depend upon the slow attainment of the 
many, but the swift advance of the few ; and the great defect 
of the doctrine is, that it does not adequately provide for 
those who are to lead the moral progress of the future. If 
this doctrine should be accepted, and no higher elements ad- 
mitted, my general impression is, that moral evolution will 
proceed along the path which is marked out by pains and 
pleasures, and that men, becoming convinced that the most 
agreeable course must, on the whole, be the best course, they 
will attempt to keep pace with their fellows, to enjoy what 
they enjoy, to dislike what they dislike, to avoid the suffer- 
ings which devotion to unattainable moral ends always inflic- 
upon individuals and communities, and to evade what will be 
considered the abnormal struggles by which sainthood and 
heroism have made the processes of evolution unnecessarily 
painful. Visions of the unattainable ideal will give way to' 
the practical demands of a peaceful industrialism ; and thence- 
forth human life upon this earth will proceed to develop its 
possibilities by the slow evolution of a society in which each 
will be so fitted to his environment that it will be impossible 
for any one to be much better or much worse than his fellows. 
All pain, sorrow, and irksome toil which human wisdom can 
foresee and prevent will be eliminated from human life, and 
for what will be left that is disagreeable — the unavoidable 



268 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



results of accident, imperfect knowledge of natural forces, 
and the occurrence of death by old age, — these being clearly 
inevitable, will demand a new adjustment of the emotions in 
order that painful sensations may not continue to cause per- 
turbations of the moral sense. This general impression has 
been conhrmed'by reflection. 

The statement that the production of pleasure is the 
highest motive of moral action in any society which has 
ever existed upon the earth, or which at present can exist, 
is a reversal of the verdict of the common sense and the 
common conscience. Sainthood, heroism, consecration to 
duty, and whatever words are used to describe the highest 
phases of human attainment, lose their popular meaning 
when the production of pleasure is made the sole end of 
virtue. Ever since history began, those who by common 
consent are regarded as the moral leaders of the race have 
been men and women who have neglected the instinct which 
taught them to seek their own pleasure, and have conferred 
the greatest benefits upon the race by persistently neglecting 
the alleged source of human progress, and have enjoined 
this neglect upon those for whom they have sacrificed them- 
selves. It is true their course has sometimes tended towards 
a perilous asceticism ; but between the two perils, — asceti- 
cism on the one hand and epicureanism upon the other, — the 
common judgment has been, that the latter was the more 
dangerous and the more immoral. 

The desire to produce a superior race of men and women 
must often lead to the deliberate sacrifice of pleasure. 
The hero has been described as " one who voluntarily en- 
dures labor and suffering for the sake of a good cause." 
The highest form of heroism is seen in the case of an indi- 
vidual who stands far above the multitude, and sees in him- 
self and them possibilities of excellence which they do not 
see. They may be happy and contented. He sees that to 
tell them what he knows, and stimulate them to make the 
progress which will advance them to his own stage of evolu- 
tion, will bring to them disturbance of their mutual relations, 
will break the continuity of their lives, will destroy their ac 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 



269 



customed pleasures, will unfit them for their social environ- 
ment, and bring upon himself reproach, as one who stirreth 
up strife. But he will make the experiment nevertheless, 
although he may not be able to foresee the issue in happi- 
ness. He would make the experiment, although it were 
impossible to determine whether this planet of ours is 
capable of sustaining the superior race of men and women 
which can be created in imagination. 

No one can scientifically prove that men are happier than 
monkeys. No one can prove that the total amount of 
happiness upon this earth has been increased by the emerg- 
ence of man from the brute condition. No one can prove 
that the surplus of pleasure is greater in the lives of the 
handful who are the flower of civilization than in the lives 
of the multitude who only fulfil the conditions of a physical 
equilibrium and a balance of vital functions. Pleasures of a 
higher order have been introduced, but more exquisite pains 
rise up to match them. The course of progress in its higher 
aspects has always been attended with labor, peril, pain, 
difficulty ; and these have not been tokens of wrong, but 
signs of growth, — the labor-pains of progress. 

We may admit what Mr. Spencer asserts, that in all the 
lower stages of life pain and pleasure are guides to those 
actions which sustain and prolong life ; that pleasure stimu- 
lates the vital functions, while pain depresses them ; that the 
avoidance of pain and the increase of pleasure are legitimate 
and satisfactory ends of endeavor in the great majority of 
cases ; and that the pursuit of these ends results in progress 
from the indefinite, incoherent, and monotonous acts of the 
lower stages of life to the definite, coherent, and diversified 
actions of the higher forms of vitality. If this were all, 
and if the process were continued without interruption after 
rational existence was established, we might accept Mr. 
Spencer's moral system without a question. But a difficulty 
arises when we observe that pleasure and pain which are 
such trusty guides in lower stages of life, become less and 
less so in the higher. Mr. Spencer meets the objection, 
first, by disputing the fact, then by admitting it and explain- 



2 JO 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



ing it. He disputes the fact (p. 84), and says that those who 
assert it " are required, in the first place, to. show us where the 
line is to be drawn between the two ; and then to show us 
why the system which succeeds in the lower will not succeed 
in the higher." That line it is, of course, impossible to 
draw, as it is impossible to tell where vegetable life ends and 
animal life begins, — where brutish instinct gives birth to 
human reason, or where animal impulse gives place to moral 
control. Moreover, we are not required to make the at- 
tempt. The history of evolution is one long record of the 
coming in of new controls, superseding and supplanting 
those which — their transient purpose being served — disap- 
pear, leaving their traces in unused functions and rudiment- 
ary organs. 

After disputing the fact, he explains it (p. 85) by showing 
that vicious pleasures and salutary pains merely imply that 
special and proximate pleasures and pains fail throughout a 
wide range of cases, which are incidental and temporary. 
He admits that mankind (p. 99), in passing from the animal 
conditions, "has been subject to a change of conditions 
unusually great and involved. This," he says, " has con- 
siderably deranged the guidance by sensations, and has 
deranged in a much greater degree the guidance by emo- 
tions. The result is, that in many cases pleasures are not 
connected with actions which must be performed, nor pains 
with actions which must be avoided and contrariwise." This 
'disarrangement is, he asserts, temporary. We may admit 
this explanation as a true one. But it certainly brings us to 
a place where some other and higher control than pain or 
pleasure must be introduced. What shall guide the conduct 
when the right action is difficult and painful, and the wrong 
conduct easy and pleasurable ? Mr. Spencer says the per- 
ception of ultimate pleasures, remote ends, represented 
pains and pleasures. 

The more I contemplate the answer, the more inadequate 
it appears. The case is this : Ever since man emerged from 
the brute condition, he has found himself more and more 
at odds with the forces which surround him, As he makes 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 



271 



moral and intellectual progress, the derangement becomes 
more complete. Every step he takes in advance discloses 
new difficulties, introduces him to new pains, demands the 
sacrifice of some pleasures, the control of others, and the 
postponement of others. He comes into a moral environ- 
ment, where to obey the instinct which once guided him 
safely is to invite moral ruin ; and this state of things he 
sees does not draw near its close, but rather there opens 
before him a career of indefinite length, in which the course 
of progress must be sustained, not by passive yielding to 
the influences which play upon him, but by conquering for 
himself a place worthy his powers, and keeping it, spite of 
all threats of pain or attractions of pleasure. 

The great achievement of the rational man is not adapt- 
ing himself to the environment in which he finds himself. 
Savages have done that as successfully as civilized men. 
The great achievement of the saint, the hero, the sage, is in 
creating derangement by rising above and becoming unsuited 
to his social environment, and then falling to work to create 
a new environment. The rational powers survey the field of 
human action and the course of human progress ; and per- 
ceiving that all along that course the field is strewn with the 
wrecks which indicate the waste of the finest products of 
human life, cast off and destroyed in the effort of man t^ 
live the healthy life of a brute, they declare that these fine 
fragile, perishable elements are best, with all their pains and 
perils, and they determine that they shall remain, and that a 
new environment shall be created in which they shall at last 
be safe. 

This also Mr. Spencer sees and admits ; and his explana- 
tion is, that if such a course of action be continued, it 
will end in pleasure. That no moralist denies. The ques- 
tion is, whether in striving for that high good, the civilized 
man is guided by a calculation of pains and pleasures or by 
some other motive. If, during all historic time, the derange- 
ment which Mr. Spencer admits has continued, if it still con- 
tinues, and is likely to continue for a time of which no one 
can foresee the end; and if so. long as this derangement con- 



272 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



tinues, pleasure and pain are not, and cannot be, direct guides 
of action, then there must be some other rule of life by which 
mankind has been and is to be guided. Pain and pleasure 
no doubt have been sufficient guides for those who have sur- 
vived, but they have certainly failed in the case of those 
who perished. This objection would be of no weight, if 
those who survived were always the best, and those who 
perished were always the worst. But this is true neither in 
the lower nor the higher stages of development. The law 
of natural selection which preserved the Hottentot and de- 
stroyed the Greek needs amendment in the interest of the 
higher products of evolution. 

So far as we can judge, in the light of any scientific 
knowledge we now have, the existence of man upon this 
earth is an accident, the emergence of civilized man from the 
savage condition is an accident, the continuance of human 
society upon this planet is not yet assured, and the mainte- 
nance of any desirable rate of progress will depend upon the 
skill with which man secures himself against possible and 
very probable contingencies in which all the gains of the past 
will be threatened. During the eternity which lies behind 
us, the material of which our solar system is composed may 
have been shaped into the form of planets capable of sup- 
porting life millions of times. How many times it has been 
barren of intelligent life, we may not attempt to say. But, 
among the myriads of worlds, one world counts for no more 
than the dust in the balance. Tennyson might have written 

And finding that of fifty worlds 

She often brings but one to bear, 

and it would have been as true of worlds as of seeds. The 
most ardent advocates of the doctrine of evolution, holding 
that life was spontaneously generated, admit that the process 
cannot now be repeated, and that if the fortunate moment 
in the life of the planet when that generation was possible 
had passed, the earth would have gone on its way, from its 
birth to its final catastrophe, barren as a granite boulder. 
Man alone among the primates, at the fortunate moment 
when it was possible, lifted himself. out of the grooves in 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 273 

which the rest of the brute creation seems doomed to run 
its course to the end of terrestrial history. But there is no 
absolute scientific reason why the highest inhabitants of the 
earth should not have been monkeys or apes, and not men. 
Suppose in that hypothetical Lemuria now lying beneath the 
Indian Ocean, in which Sclater supposes mankind to have 
originated, an army of gorillas had overwhelmed these human 
creatures, not yet fairly on their legs, as the Goths and Van- 
dals invaded Rome, what scientific reason have we to sup- 
pose the catastrophe might not have been fatal and final ? 

The monuments of the pre-historic world are the fossil 
remains of extinct races. Since history began, we see evi- 
dences of the same profusion of resources and the same 
indifference to waste, and the wholesale destruction of the 
best results of evolution. Elaborate civilizations have been 
evolved, and recklessly destroyed. The earth is strewed 
with the ruins of glorious empires. Cambodia, India, Persia, 
Syria, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, to say nothing of the lost 
Atlantis, witness to the indifference of Nature. There are 
not wanting signs that this barbaric display of wealth will 
not continue forever ; and that now at last the opportunity is 
offered which, being missed, will not return, for rational man 
to take into his own hands the completion of this terrestrial 
evolution which can advance no further without his well- 
considered and energetic cooperation. 

Mr. Spencer says that the sense of moral obligation is a 
sign of the unfitness of certain functions for their work ; 
and he prophesies that, as moralization advances, the sense of 
obligation will fade away. This statement is true, as a fact 
of experience, only of such low forms of moral obligation as 
imply an unwilling assent to the claims of morality. The 
sense of moral obligation is the sign not of organic imper- 
fection nor of functional incapacity. It is a measure of the 
great tasks which men of developed moral constitution set 
for themselves. It is true that there is a sliding scale of 
duties, and that the tendency is for the sense of obligation 
to pass on from lower to higher forms of duty ; but the 
sense of obligation deepens and strengthens as it passes. 



274 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



Nothing seems to me more illustrative of the limitations of 
Mr. Spencer's theory than this assertion. That he can fore- 
see a time when man upon this earth shall be so adjusted to 
his environment that there will be no new adjustments 
to make, and no new moral realms to conquer, indicates 
a moral system without an ideal ; and it sets the end of 
human progress so near and so low, that to accept it seems 
to me equivalent to a full surrender of that which has been 
the highest source of all human aspiration. When rational 
man at last comprehends the terms of the problem he is to 
solve, and accepts the trust which is put into his hands, he 
has choice of two methods, — the one to make pain and 
pleasure his guides to the action which will complete the 
process of evolution ; the other to secure the progress at all 
hazards, trusting that the pleasure will follow. 

The final and fatal objection to Mr. Spencer's system as 
a standard of conduct is, that pleasure cannot be made the 
direct object of action, either by the individual for himself, 
or by society at large, without moral danger. We need not 
discuss the point. All experience shows that he who makes 
pleasure the supreme end of personal endeavor invites moral 
deterioration without attaining his end. This is obvious 
enough, and Mr. Spencer admits it. The devices by which 
he accommodates his theory to the facts are curious. He 
says : " It is admitted that self-happiness is, in a measure, to 
be obtained by furthering the happiness of others. May it 
not be true that, conversely, general happiness is to be ob- 
tained by furthering self -happiness ? " Another device is, to 
make the pleasures obtained by proximate means the immedi- 
ate objects of action. In this way he who sets out in pur- 
suit of a pleasure so remote that it cannot be enjoyed by 
himself may find his satisfactions in performing the acts 
which lead up to that distant pleasure. In this way what is 
lacking in proximate pleasure is made up out of represented 
pleasures, to be enjoyed by other people or distant genera- 
tions ; and what is lacking of ultimate pleasure is made up 
by enjoyment of the means which lead up to it. 

But there is a more direct explanation. They who have 
clone most for their fellows and themselves have not been 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 2J§ 

guided by pleasure in any form. They have accepted it as a 
welcome concomitant to their high purpose, — to improve the 
quality of human life. That object can always be made the 
direct end of endeavor. It is safe to say, do that which 
tends to improve the quality of your life, and pleasure will 
follow. It is not safe to say, do that which is agreeable, 
proximately or remotely, and the quality of your life will 
improve. That is to say, one rule may be applied directly 
to the life, and the other cannot. 

The contrast between the two rules of life can be brought 
out in no better way than by applying them in a case of Mr. 
Spencer's own choosing. He imagines a tenant farmer, a 
liberal, whose landlord is conservative. If the tenant votes 
with his landlord, he will keep his farm, and add to the pros- 
perity of his family; but he will deny his principles, injure 
his party, and perhaps change the balance of power in the 
State. If he votes according to his principles, he will do a 
slight good to the State (in case he is on the right side), but 
he will lose his farm, and may be unable to feed his children. 
Mr. Spencer goes on balancing the relative advantages of 
each course of action, and closes with these remarkable 
words : " Admitting, then, that it is wrong to act in a way 
likely to injure the State, and admitting that it is wrong to 
act in a way likely to injure the family, we have to recognize 
the fact, that in countless cases no one can decide by which 
alternative courses the least wrong is likely to be done." To 
such a strait is a great man of severe morality reduced by 
the logical necessities of his system. Apply the other rule, 
and the uncertainty disappears at once. If every interest 
and advantage for himself, his family, and the State seem to 
be on one side, and on the other there is nothing but the 
honor of that solitary tenant farmer, still the duty would be 
clear. It would be better for England, better for his family, 
better for himself, that he should be driven from his home, 
be reduced to beggary, and die of starvation, rather than to 
allow himself to be turned back in the course of his develop- 
ment, and retrace his steps towards the brute from which he 
came ; and that judgment is in accordance with the decision 



276 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



which would be instantly made by Mr. Spencer, if the case 
were his own; and it reveals that which, consciously or 
otherwise, is made the standard of action by all high-minded 
men. 

There is one possible objection which may be made. We 
do not know what will tend to progress, any more than we 
know what will increase the total amount of happiness. I 
do not think that objection will be seriously made by any 
one who considers the question. Certainly no evolutionist 
can be allowed to make it. The perception of the law of 
evolution implies some accurate knowledge of the details of 
evolution. A wise man may be unable in any given case to 
say which is happier, a brute or a man ; but he is no man who 
cannot see that the man is superior to the brute. Men of 
very ordinary capacities, who could not by any possibility 
judge concerning the relative happiness of a savage and a 
saint, will be able not only to perceive the difference in the 
quality of their lives, but to trace with considerable accuracy 
the degrees of excellence which separate them. 

The defects of Mr. Spencer's system, to which I wish to 
direct attention, are briefly these : — 

1. It reverses the common moral judgments of mankind, in 
regard to the higher forms of conduct, instead of confirming 
them. 

2. It sets up a standard of conduct which cannot, without 
moral danger, be made the rule of conduct for the individual. 

3. It disparages the sense of moral obligation, when it 
ought to strengthen it. 

4. It fails to give any adequate account of the righteous 
conduct which has necessarily inflicted suffering. 

5. It confounds happiness with well-being, and, making this 
to consist in adaptation to the external environment, narrows 
the moral outlook of the race, and causes the moral ideal to 
vanish. 

In the lower stages, definite and coherent ; in the higher, it 
becomes involved and confused, reminding one of the Ptole- 
maic system in Milton's phrase : — 

" With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er. 
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 



27; 



But there is a word of commendation which I have reserved. 
One great merit of Mr. Spencer's system deserves to be 
mentioned with especial commendation. He does not make 
social needs the measure of individual obligations. 

The doctrine that all duties are social duties seems to me 
in philosophy a blunder of the first magnitude, and in prac- 
tice, a source of unmeasured moral danger. The logical 
results are tyranny and communism. Social duties are par- 
amount only in a barbarous state of society ; and success in 
the effort to make them the supreme law of individual con- 
duct, can have but one issue, — the reduction of the individual 
to social bondage. Liberty is the result of the protest of the 
individual. So long as the existence or peace of any society 
is threatened by rival and antagonistic societies, the right of 
the unit to make the most of himself, must be held in abey- 
ance ; but when once peace is established, the unit begins to 
claim his right to go on in the course of progress which will 
conduce to the acquirement and permanent possession of 
the means of individual development ; therefore the demand 
for liberty is made. But the unit is associated with other 
units claiming the same right. It is seen that each can 
secure his own development only when he is protected in his 
course of progress, and the idea of justice is perceived and 
applied. Justice is done when the individual claims are so 
adjusted that each may secure his own betterment without 
interfering with the advancement of his fellows. Complete 
justice is done only when each individual is permitted to 
exercise his three primary rights, — the right to live, the right 
to be happy, the right to development. But liberty and 
justice being established as the result of the individual pro- 
test, the bond of social cohesion would not exist were it not 
for the unfolding of the brutish, gregarious instinct of sym- 
pathy into the sentiment of love. The transition took place 
when a mother began to love her offspring. The love of the 
human mother for her infant child founded the home. The 
affections developed in the home expanded into the wider 
relations of the tribe, which were at first blood relations. 
From this grew the patriotic love of the nation, out of which 
has finally emerged the enthusiasm of humanity. When the 



2;8 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



unit begins to feel the pull of this social bond, he thinks of 
himself as no longer merely a unit, but as a member of that 
larger unit, that vast organism, which we call humanity ; and 
he thinks of his own progress as a contribution to the com- 
pletion of a grander work, — the progress of humanity. A 
necessary result of this perception is the acceptance of the 
duty of aiding in the improvement of every other individual 
who is also a part of this whole, — humanity. If this percep- 
tion were universal, and all individuals regulated their lives 
according to it, the social duty and the individual duty would 
become identical. But this ideal state never has existed, 
does not exist, and will not be established within any time 
which can be estimated. Meanwhile, because no where is 
social order established in accordance with the ideal law of 
society, the individual claims and maintains the right to 
resist society whenever it demands his degredation, or checks 
his progress. He may resist, he may bolt, he may emigrate 
and set up for himself, casting off allegiance to all existing 
society in accordance with the highest moral law. Upon this 
principle the republic is founded, and the claim of equality 
of all men is enforced, with the knowledge that equality of 
right includes inequality of mental and moral condition, and 
the means of maintaining whatever superiority of condition 
the individual can achieve under the law of equal liberty and 
impartial justice. The denial of this law leads to tyranny 
and to communism : to tyranny, when the claim is made that 
the strongest and the wisest have the right to restrict every 
individual who, in the attempt to exercise his three primary 
rights, disturbs the equilibrium of society. It has happened, 
therefore, that some of the advocates of the doctrine of 
social evolution have become the stoutest defenders of 
European despotism. When the claim is made by society 
that the interests which are held in common must always 
be paramount, the issue is communism. This, in its most 
offensive and dangerous form, is the declaration that all 
duties are social duties, and all rights social rights. It fol- 
lows, of course, that the individual must be compelled to 
make all his gains contribute to the common stock of advan- 
tages, to be equally shared by all members of society. He 



ETHICAL LAW AND SOCIAL ORDER. 2jg 

may not use his talents, skill, superior industry, or more cir- 
cumspect frugality to promote himself to a position of supe- 
rior comfort, happiness, or the attainment of a more rapid 
rate of progress. Hence logically result trades-unions, en- 
forced strikes, limited hours of labor, equalization of wages, 
and the denial of the right of the individual to work when 
he pleases, for whom he pleases, as long as he pleases, and 
for any rate of compensation which he may think it proper 
to demand and can get. 

It was the claim of the individual to the exercise of his 
proper rights which established marriage, built the walls of 
the home, founded the State, erected the church, and inaugu- 
rated the generous rivalries of rational evolution. As this 
claim is denied, naturally enough the church, the State, the 
family, begin to fall, and the attempt is made to re-establish 
barbarism under the forms of civilization. 

At the beginning of this paper, religion was ruled out of 
the discussion, because morals and religion are products of 
unlike instincts, emotions, and perceptions. Each has an 
origin, a history, and an object of its own. It will be a great 
gain to unity of thought, unity of moral purpose, and har- 
mony of moral action, if morals can be shown to have a 
natural basis upon which, independent of all religious con- 
ceptions, atheists, agnostics, theists, and Christians may 
heartily agree to stand and work together. But while I am 
ready to maintain that a great impetus to moral progress is 
to be given by a recognition of this fact, I am not blind to 
the other fact that without an issue in religion the theory 
and practice of morals must continually lead men and 
women of the highest attainments up to a stage of life where 
they will see clearly, not the consummation of human hopes 
and the perfect result of human endeavor, but rather where 
they will see, as it never could have been possible before, 
what contrasts Nature can furnish when she puts the best 
terrestrial achievement which ever has been, or ever can be 
possible, by the side of the hope which inspired it ; when 
she offers to hope, love, pity, reverence, the gratifying re- 
wards of a peaceful industrialism, and bids them fold their 
shining wings, and stop the pulses of their eager aspiration, 



280 



INSTITUTE ESSAYS. 



lest they wound themselves with useless beatings against the 
iron walls of the unknown and the unknowable. 

This course of progress which man now undertakes, with 
the alternatives before him, progress or destruction, leads by 
inexorable law up to the stage where man's expanded powers 
demand an open way towards knowledge, opportunities, and 
achievements which can be obstructed by no obstacles, and 
successfully closed by no event. Xo man can acquire the 
magnanimous spirit of the higher morality without being 
brought again and again, in his striving, to the place where 
he will see how all common duties and weary drudgeries 
would instantly be " writ large " — if he could feel the power 
of an endless life, and the reinforcement of an Almighty 
will, guiding the faltering steps of humanity to the perfect 
issues of absolute righteousness and peace. He will feel 
the need and see the grandeur of such a conception, although 
he may feel himself compelled in honest doubt to put away 
the too seductive and tormenting vision. 

I have already said that religion will not change the 
quality of human duties. But to say that the expansion of 
the terrestrial horizon and the extension of the terrestrial 
perspective would add nothing to the zeal, the courage, 
and the content with which mankind pursues its good is 
to deny the record of history and experience. To suppose 
that religion can perish, and morality reach its highest 
evolution, is a reversal of all known laws of living. My 
conclusions may be summed up in one sentence : The 
course of human life upon this earth has been such that 
man has been led to love his life, and defend it ; has 
enjoyed his life, and labored for happiness in it ; has seen 
the opportunity, and undertaken the duty of enlarging his 
life, multiplying its resources, improving the quality of his 
powers, and of seeking constantly for higher incentives to 
action for nobler ends : and that by this course of living 
progress, he has been brought to contemplate the limit of 
terrestrial life and the bounds of human desire, with a dis- 
tinct longing for that unbounded life, unbroken happiness, 
and unlimited progress which this earthly life can suggest, 
but cannot supply. 



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